Nancy Murphy / Writer

writings and performances by Nancy Murphy

Sometimes a Wild Saint

        After Tom Hiron, Sometimes a Wild God

Sometimes a wild saint will storm in while
            you’re at the stove
searing steaks,
            tapping smoked paprika
                        onto sweet potatoes. She’ll start

a fire in the blue room, open the best

Burgundy                    without asking,
crank up

the Stones. Sometimes a wild saint
is not exactly
            drunk, (but not undrunk)

maybe beyond

drunk like I was
in my twenties after work

in bars with married co-workers.
I’m not here to confess,            I’ll just say

I have seen how things can break

down, how anything can be
forgiven, how miracles are            not
that rare         really.

Sometimes a wild saint

is such a martyr, deadly
serious.           But I’m

not going to fall
into that deep

well of belief again, the longing
that follows, all that embarrassment
            when god doesn’t show up
                                    in time.

Sometimes a wild saint
will remind us that there will be summer

again, that I will be able to go underwater
            and feel cool on my entire head
                        and not even care
if my hair                      ever
            dries.


Gyroscope Review, Issue 21-3, Summer 2021


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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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Making July

 

The way my mouth must move

to make the word July

the oooh curl of lips

and push of air followed

by the open-mouth roll of tongue

ends in an expression

that could be mistaken

for the way I look

when your hands calm

the outside of my skin.

 

This all started in June

and now the low fruit ripens,

falls onto ground carpeted

with faded jacarandas.

Alone in my bed I feel peaches

open, I hear plums softly

thud on the path between

our houses.

 

Mosquitos sing low in my ear

Like a persistent lover, like

a warmth from my depths

that won’t let me sleep.

Tonight I will rise, open

screen doors without regard,

find you on my porch

with no further

elaboration.

 

The South Carolina Review, Volume 35, Number 2 (Spring 2003)

 

 

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Concrete Love

 

To make love in concrete

you must start while it’s

still impressionable,

before it settles. Then it will

be indelible, imprinted

on your walkway for

the world to see.

 

But if you fear close contact

cement under your nails,

you can wait for lines to appear,

cracks caused by upward

pressures, roots and such,

and assemble them to

look like love.

 

Years later, even after disasters

that rock the ground, overturn

stones, I think you would still

find it there in the rubble;

love is that kind of thing.

 

The Louisville Review, Volume 52, Fall 2002

 

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Betty, Poolside

 

She pleads with him to join her

in the water, at first lightly,

then with a rising insistence,

and he resists. She is unhappy.

It is always the same, the woman

calling the man to her, wanting

to float together in their skin,

and he on the edge of falling,

regaining footing, then diving in

when she is not looking. He is

on his own time. Betty’s beauty

strikes me and I wonder if he sees it

anymore the way the world does,

how any other man could not

say no. I learn they are married

one year now. She talks to me

in the Jacuzzi. I tell her

I left my husband because

he would not swim naked with me

in the dark in the pool behind

the fence at our house.

 

Baltimore Review, Volume VI, Number 2, 2002

 

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Absence

 

I.

 

I choose to live in the spaces

carved by the sharpness

of your absence.

It’s not what you think.

Neglect becomes me, my desire

gathers and elongates so that

if our shoulders should touch

when we walk, you know,

accidentally,

the heat in me catches

like a burner. And you can see

a small opening between

my lips where it escapes.

 

II.

 

My plants are dying a little

every day. First the tall palm

in the entryway. Then the others,

one by one, like a slow

moving disease. Plants

can be victims. People tell me

they may be root bound,

but I am not that kind

of girl: I did what I could

with water but I am not

going to get my hands

dirty.

 

III.

 

What is the sound

of attachment?  I thought

I had a cool eye on my

portals to illusion,

but I didn’t expect you

to slip in under cloak

of kind words, good deeds.

And there I was again, in

the middle of the night,

hugging walls, hearing

strains of bagpipes, the Irish

ones you hold close

to your body.

 

Thirteenth Moon, A Feminist Literary Magazine, Volume XVIII, 2003

 

 

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