By: Sheila Murphy

Requiescat

There will be no warmer moment
than that autumn evening when neighbors musicked
their way across the upstairs patio
glasses lifted and sweet shoots of syllables
lovelied their way into our room across
where only we were living laughing dancing

There will be no kinder place in heart
than that night when lights flicked off and on
into our private nook with access
to sounds scheduled accidental sweet and near
we swished across the blue gray carpet
and defined the room reinvented the room
as tones and tunes came home

There will be no softer recollection than your glittering
brilliant mind and sweet soft arms I resurrect the scene that scents
my very bones my smile my heart again
returning to life beyond you and still dance to honor you
to know an angel fleshes out my next moments
of living constant beautiful this fragile present tense

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Were You Proud of Me

Were you proud of me were you
When you were here you are
Still here within my being
As we were then always

I hear your voice I do not
Lose the tone the intonation
I do not sign my name without
Your name I sign our names

I navigate I suspend I seek
To coast I flounder and I fly
I take your breath into my hands
Into my heart I rest within your care

I have lived so long within your heart
It is my home always you are here
Again I am a little cold my skin
Hurts apart as I listen to your touch

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Just Then

Just then I needed
her fractured honesty. I needed
to believe something untrue

to retrieve the stealth in limbs,
my breath,
the cheat grass of anonymity
in fields gone strong.

She said there are no figurines to cloud
your light, there is no
voice better than you in song,
so sing until you need to

sleep and sleep, and quietly
remember I will love you
even when you have lost
my face, my words, my name.

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Sheila E. Murphy, who was born in Mishawaka, Indiana in 1951, is an American text and visual poet. She has been writing and publishing since 1978 and has received numerous awards for her work. One of her most notable achievements was receiving the Gertrude Stein Award for her book, Letters to Unfinished J. Green Integer Press in 2003. In 2017, Murphy was awarded the Hay(na)ku Poetry Book Prize for her book Reporting Live from You Know Where by Meritage Press (U.S.A.) and xPress(ed) (Finland). She currently resides in Phoenix, Arizona.

For more details, visit: Sheila Murphy – Wikipedia