If This Has to Be the World Between Us
Sheila E. Murphy
When we long together for heat lamp
Unfurnishing our ware home vaulted above
The most romantic of precipitations
Snow feathering one of us would be a kiln
Soft skills trilling through ribald conversations
Only the devoted slow along the road
Is there an injustice in the way
Of our moving forward or merely on
Task our duty to occlude as in
Severed relationship with this one that one
Cornered like a cat in a spat brought on
By languidly faux confidence presumed
Sustainable as water in the desert
We keep hearing magically will prevail
A Pushcart-nominated poet, Sheila E. Murphy’s recent poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Lana Turner, Poetry Bay, Cherry Road Review, Word for Word, and others including ē·rā/tiō. Most recent book publications: Escritoire (Lavender Ink, 2025), Permission to Relax (BlazeVOX Books, 2023). Gertrude Stein Poetry Award for Letters to Unfinished J. (Green Integer Press, 2003). Hay(ha)ku Book Prize for Reporting Live From You Know Where (Meritage Press, 2018). She lives in Phoenix, Arizona. At Wikipedia. @shemurph.bsky.social.