Sheila E. Murphy

Running for Justice

I decided to run for justice 
of the peace. The incumbent had held 
the gavel for a decade, and I reflected 
on the passel of mistakes that might have been 
brought before me in my black robe
as I heard at least two sides of the story.
Too bad I no longer qualified to sit
in judgment. My critical thinking might have
proved useful. Instead a cup of cold water
was thrown in my younger-than-chronological
face. I learned there were age limitations
on both ends of the spectrum. The window 
of opportunity had closed. Too late for 
my community. I'll just keep 
polishing my objectivity.

 

Fifteen Lines of Retrospect

I want a sonnet not to hold me back,
and you, you're not a sonnet or a rhyme
in 4/4 time. You are the fortune cracked open
between fingers that once held the flute
and broke last year and thank God mended 
like my brain I would prefer not to talk 
to pieces, Pisces. I lost a lot last year, 
and now am better for the vacuum 
you hear Hoovering as the English say
and hovering like priests in the mid-section 
of the confession box refrain from boxing 
ears. There is so much I'm not going to 
confess, not that you asked, just remember this 
idiom stone cold has already scalded 
us before we scolded our own selves.

Eggs

An order
of mostly Polish-
American nuns
from the motherhouse
arrived in pairs
at our front door 
before each Easter
with a large basket
of Easter grass 
with lamb-shaped cake
the centerpiece of eggs
three-dimensionally designed
akin to Fabergé eggs 
I later viewed 
in a museum

We saved the eggs 
for years. 
On one occasion
when my parents 
were not home,
my brothers and I 
hardball-pitched a couple 
of the eggs 
at each other. 

Naturally the hydrogen
sulfide sulfur smell
became an instant 
truce. Was this
seemingly accidental occurrence 
part of the peace plan
of the Sisters of St. Joseph,
Third Order of St. Francis
headquartered in South Bend?

 

From Him

The invisible me wears jade
to preclude your soft hue 
too vulnerable to brave 
what is to come if history 
abides our learning.

Have I told you about undying
winter in my bones, how marginal
the night has become as though
a whorl of hurt consumed me?
Do you begin to know what I deserve?

I have branded you mine
in a way you may consider
underhanded, like some two-
faced pitcher doomed to lose
each game. Who would cheer for me?

For me, the uptake has no uptick.
I breathe hard and slow my way through
what is to be. Fate leaves me in brackets
around precious polished stones
that won’t be wedged into these cufflinks.

 

 

Sheila E. Murphy's most recent book is Escritoire (Lavender Ink, 2025). She is an inveterate walker who prefers the scent of desert landscape. But in this heat . . . She has lived in Phoenix, Arizona most of her adult life.