OAK MORSE

What High Profile Celebrities Hide from the Housekeeper

The scalpel in the slit of the sofa.

Adderall label not fully flushed down the toilet.

Bleached out photographs of old friends

who believe in extortion.

Lighter fluid tucked under the socks. The pistol

in the bottom of the pool.

Old letters from loved ones

sewn inside the pillow where they lay their head

and sing suicide lullabies.

A stash of syringes in the ceiling near notes

from the inside man who maps out their moves

then scrubs any traces.

Confidentiality forms folded up beside

a video camera dripping with K-Y Jelly.

F**k it scribbled on the will.

POZ magazines.

Abortion receipts.

A torn-out psalm 46:1-3

with dried blood on it

and hard-core cash clipped in the center

of the bible for what they would give

for at least a couple days of

normalcy.

Oak Morse lives in Houston, Texas, where he teaches creative writing and performance 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 2020 Witness Literary Award and a Semi-Finalist for the 2020 Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry. He has received fellowships from Brooklyn Poets and Twelve Literary Arts. He is a Houston Texans' Stars in The Classroom recipient, a Pushcart Nominee and a Warren Wilson MFA candidate. Oak's work has appeared in Strange Horizons, PANK, Beltway Poetry Quarterly, Nimrod, Cosmonaut Avenue, Solstice, among others.