swifts  &  s l o w s · a quarterly of crisscrossings

fractions fracture
Sheila E. Murphy

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Daylight

Fractions fracture, shift what we elect to think.
We tell ourselves that thinking spawns retrieving.

Merciful half loud birds litter the street with
punctuation that safekeeps our retrieving.

Posses of arithmetic advance toward
routine left right where we left it, retrieving

daylight that thresholds innocence, behold ferns,
accumulated drops of sun, retrieving

what we once believed the norm, whole lives stillborn
in locked lanes perpetually retrieving.

Polis

In this smudge pot of nouveau revolution,
it behooves you to mind your pints and quarts.
Senators you did not vote for keep (mis)representing
you and yours. Listen to them not listen.

Insects crowd the yard almost unseen,
but felt, of course, on the skin and in the nasal passages.
Various speaking parts have been assigned
to everyone but you.

Audition, for the love of mike. It’s time
you stood up and showed what you can do
unfettered by interfering bullies
who usually get all the parts.

The art of holding back is overrated.
Just let the sotto go, and take a stand via
your secret Type-A personality, complete with
franchise and square footage in your name.

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Sheila E. Murphy. Poems have appeared in Poetry, Hanging Loose, Fortnightly Review, and numerous others. Most recent books are Permission to Relax (BlazeVOX Books, 2023), October Sequence: Sections 1-51 (mOnocle-Lash Anti-Press, 2023), and Sostenuto (Luna Bisonte Prods (2023). Murphy received the Gertrude Stein Award for Letters to Unfinished J. (Green Integer Press, 2003). Murphy’s book titled Reporting Live from You Know Where (2018) won the Hay(na)Ku Poetry Book Prize Competition from Meritage Press (U.S.A.) and xPress(ed) (Finland).  Her Wikipedia page can be found at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheila_Murphy