haibun || Sheila E. Murphy

Early On

Rain encompasses my Midwest. I do not capture rhythmic 
frictional mistakes that leave the windshield evenly
pockmarked, smooth, uneven then again. We share a
curfew and unlimited supplies of innocence. I cannot
claim to be in love, although an impulse to have 
pantomimed this decade comes as naturally as any gesture
of survival. Sun stays muted until someone wants
a rainbow. Truth usually manufactured can be made to fit
a circumstance. We are only young as we pretend. This 
weekend afternoon, others suppose we are en route to
lifelong happiness. The physical indifference might be 
retrofit to how we're seen. It is too early, still, to think
about a self being constructed. Each of us has speed read
the parts that we were handed on single sheets. I say my lines, 
and you complete my sentences. The clouds keep letting go.
Wheels can be heard like music, and gray fills all available
space. One does not manufacture light. One apprehends what can 
be found, and tries to keep it whole or even possible again.

Fidelity, its provenance, the discipline required to maintain
a consistent story

Sheila E. Murphy