The Color Between The Hours by Elizabeth Morse
Review by Linda Lerner

The Color Between The Hours by Elizabeth Morse, Finishing Line Press, Georgetown, Kentucky (www.finishinglinepress.com) 2023, 22pp. $17.99.

The title refers to the place between contradictory feelings the poet has: as she plans for the future, to leave someone and the past behind, she dreams of “highways to reach” him. The simultaneity of  opposing emotions is a consistent motif in a collection that both eludes our attempt to decide which it is and keeps us totally absorbed in a kind of psychological mystery, trying to figure it out.

Morse skillfully compresses those contradictory feelings in “Paying Attention,” enabling the reader to visualize both; as in a shared computer screen, we see her seated in “the kitchen of childhood,” feeling as if she never left that home and at the same time sitting “miles south” from it (7).

Movement toward a startling conclusion is another stylistic devices often used. In “Nightshade;” she moves from  toxins hiding in salads, “berries (that) taste like love, ”negative feelings toward a  spouse hidden in a dinner  she makes for him, slowly drawing the reader in, to agree, yes, we, “everyone has wanted to poison someone sometime” (8).

Morse subtly veers from first to second person in a city she feels doesn’t treat you well anymore “Expressway” (11). In another poem she shows how difficult it is to move on. Haunted by what she tries to free herself from, but what “seeps into our fingers, tears our skin at night,” now shifting to third person (“When You Left” (14).

This is further developed in “Oracle Of Lost Cats;” she too, like them, is driven by (past) scents.” A marvelous poem,  both about cats and which transcends its subject. She sees the “tabbies, tiny panthers” what no else notices, just as by how someone  looks at her,  she “knows (she is) not the one”(18).

Morse struggles to move on, leave the past behind, knows“ It’s time to learn how to drive, even at fifty.” “Expressway,” (11).  The poet’s use of driving, on both real and imagined highways to lead back to someone is coupled with both feeling lost, and fearing  she’ll miss the right exit.

And, what exactly is the right exit?  Not a simple question when considered in the context of these poems. To the poet’s credit, she leaves it up to the reader (“Blue Roads” (10).

The Color Between the Hours is a book you should buy; you’ll really enjoy immersing yourself in it.