Morning

[fluorescent.43]

When we woke, the use of 'we' implies that this is a metaphor for something bigger. the imagery follows suit.
we wrapped ourselves in tangerine light, this stanza has some lovely imagery going on, but it's reeled off in a list with only a comma to separate. i'd suggest ending this with a period.
kissed the morning with blood,
wrapped our biceps with silver linings, reminds me of a tattoo. 'biceps', to me, is also distinctly masculine in tone.
and found our pulse. none of this imagery has any impact on me because it's so quickly written. each line is too distinct, too different. i say expand each line and explore it a little more.

The sky was covered in ash— threatens to be apocalyptically cliché in this stanza, but i think the last two lines save it.
thick gray blankets
that fell like snow
and crumbled in our hands. this line suggests partial responsibility to me. this stanza too is lovely in its own right but as a whole poem the images start to fall apart because there's no glue to connect them except for a shaky thread of morning.

A cardinal sat outside the bedroom window,
unaware of death cackling with clenched teeth,a bit cliché. it's tough to do something original when personifying death because the grim-reaper-in-the-night-howling-to-the-wind has been done too many times. combined with your ashes-sky thing, this poem starts to remind me of a YA novel.
and searched for something to eat in the fog. great. did your cardinal find something to eat? the ending line has no impact whatsoever on me.

one thing i noted is that your title is relatively simple. 'Morning' is traditionally a lovely and pretty thing, so i think your poem is slightly off against your title. adding an adjective would work better- maybe 'Red Morning'? but it's entirely up to you.

anyways... i feel like you already know what i'm about to say: choose your words carefully. you come up with some good imagery in this poem, which is the only thing that saves it from being a total disaster, but they're neither carefully crafted nor connected. 'Morning' suggests that you wake up to this scene of horror, but i have no idea what it is or the cause or the effects or what-even-happened-here. too vague.

also, if the sky were covered in ashes, how is there tangerine light? i admit i like the thought of tangerine light, though. very pretty, but not much meaning. if there is a story you want to tell, tell it clearly and succinctly. choose your images carefully because they'll set the tone of your poem-- the ashes-in-the-sky part is somber, but the cardinal part is almost funny. the death interjection is like an attempt to connect it, somehow, to the rest of the poem. each of your stanzas could be a different poem.

good luck if you intend to edit! keep working on this-- i say you could turn it something really nice with some cleaning up.

43.