from THE TWELVE || Sheila E. Murphy

Hoist
[ 1 ] Only infrequently, lone clarinet, the present tense in single file along a shadowed path.
[ 2 ] On account of hovering above affection one feels, one grows preoccupied against the grain.
[ 3 ] Tempura only partially a retrograde of occupational intent, with amorous regard for furnishings and lateral mistakes.
[ 4 ] Cleansing needs at least one of the senses, to build or to have built a following without a history.
[ 5 ] Long after the fact, replenishing means a nod toward the vibraphone, the Studebaker, the ellipses, and a funnel full of an elixir.
[ 6 ] If she were alive today, we would be speaking in solved riddles leaning toward an infinity of proof that love turned palpable remains the sole ingredient worth saving.
[ 7 ] Blanche is not a nickname, never was, nor will be throttled by intent or glory.
[ 8 ] Syllables to strap on to a mantra, in the hope of meaning’s rising like heat to an upper room.
[ 9 ] When his time away from earned routine has drifted out of view, he will have hesitated once too many times to retain the right to lay claim to a pre-built future that he claims to have invented.
[ 10 ] Once inversion comes to call on bread and butter clients, there will be a void in just the same stream of consideration reserved for intimate acquaintances.
[ 11 } How hollow sorrow turns when one dwells there, looking at the sturdy walls, still theorized to equal safety from uncertainty.
[ 12 ] Eight years on, the heroine arrives replete with style and beauty turned residual still filled with shimmer, versus light of innocence that appears mere punctuation fallen on the lane.