two eleven-year-old boys / I teach have my bones / knotted & brittle the pair spewing taboo / darkest tales I sealed in locked jaw / at their age: I don’t like sports / don’t like church words I tried to grit / out my prayer hole but mama & granny forbade / I was a curve-ball in this family / so I forced in my mouth-guard & repented / dimmed of shame trying not / to let scriptures blur through clenched tears / eyes misting like yard lines on rainy days / the same way I posed as my own pastor / in bible study pretending to preach verse / when the bible only a cover / I wanted to surrender / arms of field goal / yet held onto silence / taught quiet by mama & granny / their sharp trills piercing / again & again / they choired boys play sports / take their butts to church Amen / yet my students / two boys / smart sumo spirit / today sing in my class a unison psalm: we don’t like sports / don’t like church Their voices rise in praise / to their own souls curl me / behind my desk / I am choked up: a cleat shoved down / my throat from wanting to run home / my own homerun back to childhood / & fumble the covenant forced / upon me like a league’s code / to know mama & granny love me / meanwhile these two young scholars elevate me / blast like Gabriel’s horn their parade in corner / a power to be free agent / praise the honest cast out the shame / mama & granny, young boys can brawn into solid men without physical games / today I sprint to the solid man / to Ralph Ellison, with his brain; brilliant Baldwin / with his pen & sacrifice to Him / my sorrow & give glory to the boys who / bear my resurrection.
Morse lives in Houston, Texas, where he teaches creative writing and theater and leads a youth poetry troop, the Phoenix Fire-Spitters. He was the winner of the 2017 Magpie Award for Poetry in Pulp Literature, a Finalist for the 2023 Honeybee Poetry Award and a Semi-Finalist for the 2020 Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry. A Warren Wilson MFA graduate, Oak has received Pushcart Prize nominations, fellowships from Brooklyn Poets, Twelve Literary Arts, Cave Canem’s Starshine and Clay as well as a Stars in the Classroom honor from the Houston Texans. His work appears in Black Warrior Review, Obsidian, Tupelo, Beltway Poetry Quarterly, Nimrod, Terrain.org, Hampden-Sydney Poetry Review, among others.