ENCORE
SHEILA MURPHY
I am new again among the forest-less trees each pocked
with woodpecker taps and staccato burrows
shifting the complexion
amid firelight warmth recited stories
that join flickers of recollection.
resembling my own breath into a flute
producing varying results and scant patience
of the shrill residue of moon I have invented
alongside crinkly leaves that begin to show fatigue
I look up beyond the leaves then wrestle
to the beloved earth my inklings
of an anchored self no longer stray and home
Murphy’s most recent book is Permission to Relax (BlazeVOX Books, 2023). Murphy received the Gertrude Stein Award for Letters to Unfinished J. (Green Integer Press, 2003). Reporting Live from You Know Where (2018) won the Hay(na)Ku Poetry Book Prize.
