Repertoire
Take me to you
bed, the indoor
air sifted through screen
repeats itself myself
ourselves
It is quaintly morning anymore.
I hold my head up near low cloud
and I remember you
the way you said rain is
romantic
And I pretended to move away
because you said so
little quietly.
The walk went with
low shade of my umbrella.
Was it Friday, I suppose,
the raindrops
each became
a sheet of rain, and I
between them, there with you.
I Safen You
Your small sleeves. Breath upon your arms.
Your thin hands.
Over several days, I watch them
hold, not age.
I reason with the cells within you, as I see them.
I tell myself I have no code.
I signal from the self I do not show you.
You receive the grief.
We fall into
the snow.
No Longer Innocence
I grieve into your collarbone
I touch your sleeve.
What little feeling
I have left, now mist.
It is a quiet afternoon.
Light green leaves still slow,
change trees.
Small trees define the shallow yard.
Earth becomes perfume.
I touch dirt and I think
to grow. Your sadness
hurts against my will.
No choice is made.
I tell myself young things.
I often unsay what is felt.
You change before my eyes turn young.
I Like to Hear You (Sleeping) in my Sleep
Softer the array of butterflies leaves
bright wind flapping in the fragile breeze
of wingspan
and the antlers angle off in spare directions
furnishing mid heights of trees
like sour cherry ones that sweeten gardens
More birds that you can spry your way to hear
again a golden while they work
their lines of code and teach us
what we think and how we’re worth more than
the singular distress informed by signals
in the lanes we leave away from stratospheres we love
We learn to love the nested selves
we capture in our mirrors and we half neglect
the father whom we love out of the corner of our eye
against a span of theories meaning little
anymore, a story in a diary someone’s worked
a life to foretell until lithe and feeling true
Sheila E. Murphy has been published widely in the United States, Australia, England, and other countries. She received the Gertrude Stein Award from Green Integer Press for Letters to Unfinished J. (2003). Her most recent published books are visual poetry collaborations
Yes It Is (with John M. Bennett). Luna Bisonte Prods. 2014
2 Juries + 2 Storeys = 4 Stories Tourjours (with K.S. Ernst). Xerolage 55 from Xexoxial Editions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheila_Murphy
