haibun || Sheila E. Murphy

Takes a Wife

This most exhausting sentence broths on toward completion of one's life, says he.
You mimic me. You fault line everywhere I have. The mensch I thought I was lies
down in hammock, disabusing selves of thoughts concerning safety. Here we are,
and there I go, thinks he. The portion of the plate devoted to the vegetables
expands beyond the fruit, the grain. Sandpipers take the mind off sand. The sky
becomes all that exceeds beneath-ment in so many words. She's central and she's
prompt. She's here on time. She norms her way through others' time. I want to go
into a question where I leave my mark, and lose the interrogative, says he. I want
to find a self that I can be, as singular as March. I want to point out what has
been bequeathed to me, and give it up before I give it time. I want to father
something sweet. I watch the feathers from my situation comedy address the branches
and the future heat. I want to sever ties to tone deaf fracas, and attain
bewildered ways. I want to loofa obligations, breathe out safety while the norms
shake off my bother. Back to life and back to dreams and back to music, I will
overtake reputed moons. To month the whole way through the dowry and consider
myself whole as healed, apart from brothers, uncles, quaintness, aunts. That stance.

Shimmy as a solitary inkling, something often left upon the off-white page

Sheila E. Murphy