Nancy Murphy / Writer

writings and performances by Nancy Murphy

Summers of College

 

In summers of college I carried

trays of food or two coffee cups

in one hand or four platters

up my arm. A short polyester tan

colored uniform melted

to my newly bloomed body as I pinballed

around the packed Pennsylvania diner

from table to minestrone soup

to rice pudding, and finally

to the narrow opening of counter

where the club sandwich platters

appeared with young Greek

cooks holding on to one end only

releasing when I made eye

contact, wolves hungry for American

girls. Those days I blushed easily

but no one noticed, the kitchen

was always steaming, the heat

made us all a little uncivilized.

 

Sitting at the counter Eddie watched

me as I poured his coffee, called me

college girl, tried to tease a smile.

His truck driver compact body, black

curly hair and warm browns

for eyes, a slight chip on a front

tooth. He knew it

was a summer thing, picking me

up in his car the size of Montana

taking me nowhere and everywhere.

The slide into heat and sweetness like

the slowest quicksand. He knew

there is a time and there is a place

for some things and they don’t

go beyond that, as if surrounded

by barbed wire, electrified. He knew

he would not be visiting me

in the fall at the liberal

arts college in upstate NY.

I sensed he was right but argued

anyway, like a child that just has

to ask. But anything

less seemed cruel.

 

Altadena Poetry Review: Anthology 2018

 

 

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airport saturday night 7:45 pm

 

like a hospital waiting room, airport departure wings are full of

small talk and long silences and what sits underneath.  I see

parents sitting on either side of me at the gate

philadelphia, back when you could do that kind of thing

i always protested

they always insisted.

 

now I follow my honey blonde college girl around

bradley international terminal, clinging to the

seconds before she succumbs to security,

asking questions that don’t matter with urgency

do you have something to read?

she raises her hand slightly to stop me, blinks affirmatively.

 

we’ve already said as much as could be said

considering. she is the age when I started to

know myself. I remember so well I think

she is me, when she lets me into her worries

I remember too well: we share the same nervous system,

I feel her burdens like they are my own

mostly I am relieved she trusts me again,

I am redeemed after the silent years, the secret

years, the scary years.

 

north gate now, I let her release me first from

our embrace, our parting words stumble out jaggedly

whatagreatvisitgoodluckyeahitwasmomwitheverythingimsoproudofyouthankyoucallmewhenyouiwilliwillarrive

then I watch as she moves forward into the jaws

of the larger world,  she doesn’t turn back

until the last second, knows I wait for this

final crumb–the one who leaves has all the power–

she raises her hand birdlike and smiles without teeth, but her eyes dance

when I play my part as the pursuing suitor waving with all of me,

I watch the hem of her trench coat follow her around the corner.

 

Altadena Poetry Review: Anthology 2017

 

 

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A Midtown Street, Thursday 2:30 pm

 

Today I passed the middle of my life exactly.

It’s my call: we all pick our time of death.

It struck me undeniably like the way some

know the death of a loved one or that

they have cancer. I am Janus

looking forward and backward, sad for

what I leave, yet pulled ahead to what is

possible. Some things just can’t be transferred.

 

How to mark this midpoint, to linger

and savor or rush through so as not

to get caught up in the fabrics

in the doorway between then and now.

 

If your only fault is that I may never write

a poem about you, well, that may be

surmountable. You may have other things

I need. I need help crossing this street,

I fear carnage. Do this one thing and I

will stay in your bed all night even when

I want to roam at three a.m., find my keys

and cry in the car, missing the one before

the one who changed me irreversibly

who bound me to him with secrets.

I know it will fade, everything fades

and everything is permanent. Everything.

 

Eclipse, A Literary Journal, Volume Fourteen, Fall 2003

 

 

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