Shadows

By Cameron Morse

Shadows 


There is a darkness 
behind the eyelids. If I'm not
 my father's son, some 
one out there must be my father 

who looks a lot more like me 
than he does. My mother's ovulation chart 
geared for some other man,  
Its diligent little dots marking each 

spike in temperature 
indicate I was conceived on a dark 
summer night—born on April Fool's Day—
but my baby book means nothing 

to the twisted hellraiser 
who crept back from exile with his 
demon bride toward, of all places, Tulsa. 
“The day you were born,”
 
he once said, “was the happiest day of my life.” 
Who's the bigger fool now, old man? 
I have taken the paternity test 
you put into the mail. For old times sake, 

I have complied. Again it is August. Each bright 
leaf hoards darkness 
in the apple tree, a secret 
kept away from the light. Wasps would flute 

the rafter beams in my shed if I let them. 
They would inject each cocoon 
with their beautiful 
offspring.