First Day in Beijing
Cameron Morse
No time to write I cannot find a moment
trying to keep my son alive, Lili and I carry Theo
onto subways, those cold marble halls,
examine outdoor maps in February cleaver cold.
Escalators purr underfoot. Sliding doors slap
open and hiss shut. In order to register myself
and 16-month-old, I search the faces
of ten thousand human beings on the road
to a remote police station. Lili accosts the kindhearted
for mumbled directions. Ten thousand human
beings stare back at me. Sidelong glances drop like shafts
all about my strange little family, my adorable boy
strapped to what appears ordinary Chinese woman’s chest.
Ten thousand sidelong glances and ten times
that number of downcast smartphone-illuminated gazes
ghost me and mine completely. On my first day in Beijing,
I am blessed with only a little dirt puffing
between Theo’s fingertips below an ash, brown clumps
of leaves dangling outside China Unicom,
a stack of chrome window casements towering six stories
above the sidewalk. His powdery pinch catches
little gusts of wind. How fortunate I feel for the dirt.
Back in the store, a lanky salesman with flat eyes is having trouble
shooting a photograph of my face. I stare into the black lens
seated forever before his particular human face—high cheekbones
and caved in teeth—peel off my spectacles
again and again. It seems to be a problem with the lens. His fingers
open and shut, letting in and closing out the light.
Cameron Morse was diagnosed with a glioblastoma in 2014. With a 14.6 month life expectancy, he entered the Creative Writing Program at the University of Missouri--Kansas City and, in 2018, graduated with an M.F.A. His poems have been published in numerous magazines, including New Letters, Bridge Eight, Portland Review and South Dakota Review. His first poetry collection, Fall Risk, won Glass Lyre Press's 2018 Best Book Award. His three subsequent collections are Father Me Again (Spartan Press, 2018), Coming Home with Cancer (Blue Lyra Press, 2019), and Terminal Destination (Spartan Press, 2019). He lives with his pregnant wife Lili and son Theodore in Blue Springs, Missouri, where he manages Inklings' FOURTH FRIDAYS READING SERIES with Eve Brackenbury and serves as poetry editor for Harbor Review. For more information, check out his Facebook page or website.