the trains left / to go where they go / she wasn’t there / to rattle off with them down the lips.

Poetry by Matt Morgan

         after Muddy Waters

my head is the gin /
the heart grown in graft / rock cleft /
my mouth / the gristmill /
the fig tree grown / in shade /
she took the grainy child / the grainy photo /
of the the grainy child / the trains left /
to go where they go / she wasn’t there /
to rattle off with them down the lips.
He said, I’ve shed one form for another.
One woman for another. And found myself
no richer than before. There are blues,
and there are Delta blues, and Lord,
I have known you both.

Originally from Mississippi, Matt Morgan now lives and teaches English in Kalamazoo, Michigan. You can find more of his creative work in recent issues of New Orleans Review, Midwest Quarterly, and Cold Mountain Review.