By: Bridget Murphy
Plumes
she jumped before
she lived to old age, before
sex, before an organsm, before
she could take an ultra sound
photo home to display on the fridge,
before she felt
the exhilaration of growing
asparagus, of watching it fail, of trying
again next year, before spring
migrations common merganser
edging the shore, her wind
swept tufts, long Cyrano beak,
before she knew anything
about Cyrano, his nose, his fear
of never being loved, before
this word panache, its fluctuation
between flamboyance
and recklessness, before
she learned to roast a chicken
the way her mother did,
whole lemon in the cavity,
garlic cloves tucked in the skin,
elastic and brown, hurt at the edges,
to hold someone’s skin, to watch
death, really watch,
with your fragile heart, tangled
in the branches, blue
heron on the lake.
What Lasts
Winter’s dark
circles back, hard to tell
this up from down.
Texas dust turns
every surface brown
this far north.
Seed casings fall
as they should, so
much loneliness.
Some things get canceled.
Water stays
to fill the cracks. Lake Harriet
opens ashy, a day
for taking shelter.
Someone
scuttles out of her car
removes a fallen branch
from the road, a neighbor
walks her children
still in pajamas to the mail box,
they loop back unshoveled.
I remember
my father left. I watched him
turn back. In front of the house,
he drove in circles
waving out his window
like a clown. He wanted
me to laugh. I don’t
remember who
stopped waving first.
Bridget Murphy received an MA in English with an emphasis on the teaching of writing from Georgetown University. She has taught English at North Hennepin Community College for the last 30 years. Bridget is a writer of poetry and non-fiction with a recent publication entitled “The Last Rites” in a collection of Irish Minnesota writers: The Harp and The Loon Anthology: Literary Bridges between Ireland and Minnesota.
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