Walking
and there at my feet
a dead bird newly fallen
poised on its belly, its beak
stuck
into the grass
as though this unblemished bird is on display
as though its streak of industrial yellow
across the end of its tail feathers
a warning
to me
to yield
to this sacrifice
for my need
to feel something poetic
this day
After Reading James Tyner Poems
I want to cry blue and white threaded words
kneeling
in dirt fork to throat
red sparks reflecting in puddles in glass in plastic cracks
filled with black
seeping
from tendons from fingers
ratty
as shattered love
cold
against porcelain–
trolleys drunks passing shouting
three stories
below
my window
Mark Larry
gets his hooks into my long-divorced, sixty-five-year-old friend–
first, through Facebook chat, then through WhatsApp–
my friend says when widowed-Mark Larry finishes his tour in Iraq
they plan to marry–
has she ever met him in person, heard his voice
had a video chat, does she have his picture, I ask–
all answers are No, except, for one photo–
Message it to me, I say
I upload the picture to Google Image Search, and instantly
find this same Mark Larry– by other names– with warnings–
STOLEN FAKE SCAMMER
I find YouTube videos showing Mark Larry’s place of business– not
a military base, rather a large stark room
filled with outdated desktop computers–
many Nigerian Mark Larrys– some of them women–
all laughing/flashing around a lot of cash
heart pounding, now, I know I have to warn my friend
know my friend believes she’s about to be a bride
know this news will break her heart
know this might cause anger, the loss of a friend
know, a real friend– has no choice
Alice Morris holds a MS in Counseling from Johns Hopkins, and she comes to writing with a background in art– published in The New York Art Review and a West Virginia textbook. Her poetry is published in The White Space-Selected Poems, Delaware Beach Life, in several editions of The Broadkill Review, Silver Birch Press, and Rat’s Ass Review. Her poems appear in the anthologies– Bared-Contemporary Poetry and Art on Bras and Breasts, Ice Cream Poems, The Way to my Heart-Food Based Love Poems, Rehoboth Reimagined, Destigmatized-Voices for Change, A Collection of Dance Poems, Amore-Love Poems, and most recently in Sanctuary– with an endorsement by Pulitzer Prize winner, Jonathan Freedman. In 2018 she won 5th of 6th place in a Clutch-themed fiction contest (Postcard Poems and Prose), and she received the 2018 Florence C. Coltman Award for Creative Writing. Her poetry is forthcoming in Backbone Mountain Review and Paterson Literary Review. She is a member of Coastal Writers, and The Rehoboth Beach Writer’s Guild.