Poems by Sheila Murphy

A Quiet Yes

After long years of the father, 
her life evolved to a new core simplicity. 
She found herself immune to the constantly fraught scenes 
no new job could match or hatch. Everything grew easy
as she masterminded from an inner place 
almost holy in its hollowness. 

Everyone noticed her not wanting 
to be noticed only to mistake how easy 
even the most chaotic arrangements must have felt to her 
as she became invisibly in charge of the flow 
of people broken in their need to pretend 
a non-existent power. That same power that slipped into 
placing her carefully or casually in charge 
and saying or not saying a quiet yes 
in the washed Fresnel light 
displacing the spotlight from the stage. 

After her childhood worst she learned 
the gentle miracle of finding a smooth approach 
toward the unknown next. An inner logic 
came to reside within her, a stability 
previously unimagined in a younger skin 
as peace eclipsed the once contagious pseudo electricity 
her new constant center, a would-be home 
to those trusting a new balance in the softer light.

Proper Noun

I refuse to confuse
your name with 
the face facing me. 

Words sung 
atonally as intoned.
Hearing your name,

I sound out
the syllables 
found symbols 

of round generosity 
gravity impounding 
a freer flow,

a flower without scent, 
sent to breathe invisibly 
a little while beyond.