Sheila E. Murphy: Four Poems

Coronado House

bowl
of grapefruit,
freshly picked from

backyard tree, atop
the table,
thick-

skinned,
naturally protected,
as we are

not at all,
these recent
mornings

place
impeccably clean,
and quiet professionals

move in and
out again,
of

vast
room three
defined by her,

the small flicker
who is
left,

pale,
smiling faintly
around sharp humor

we sift her
signals to
locate,

(hurts
to talk
she'd rather listen)

midway through story
someone else
arrives,

this
shifts the
hint of tension,

what to say:
we love
her

quietly
this near
skeleton intelligent heart

the same one
shining across
stage

after
stage, dignified,
magnetic grace shimmering

through rooms, hearts
desiring permanence,
addictive

prospect
certain of
us demand to

make true, regardless
of the
evidence

yearning
for contrary
point-blank facts,

in the car
driving home,
opacity

or
its near
match evolving nothingness,

indebted to those
who offer
kindness




transist

wings touch
wings
that powder
into pastel heat

the picture rests
of you
with breath-toned eyes

your face
from nowhere
real to me
as thought

just now mimics
free pour
of shaping light

as without speech
the elements transist
to vast wing stretch





condone


cauterize the silk
under my
breath

already
June and
fireflies mesh with

screen through which
one gently
breathes

morning
repeats itself
to spawn recollection

blue sky recedes
from porous
remembrance

quantity
not quality
he said presidentially



nocturne

normed daylight sponges average
meaning (surface of the common plan,
formed sense of sea, a layered
solace from this time

(a face lost facts placed through
the scattered cool beneath
pale melody in wind
drawn over pewter slips

of method acting under
glass still clustered
near a hidden hollow line
supporting fruit curved

into gravity (the town
undone along the street
still signified by home
these two young places




Sheila E. Murphy is a much published American poet, who is also much published in Britain by Rupert Loydell’s Stride Publications. Read her online volume, A Sound the Mobile Makes in Mudlark # 8. There are two long interviews with her, one by Tom Beckett and another with Thomas Fink. Read a review of her Incessant Seeds by Thomas Fink on Jacket.


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