He’s Not

by Sheila Murphy (June 2025)

He’s Not
–
He’s not been held. He’s been with-
held not felt. He’s felt dis-
carded apart from the table.
He’s been tabled like an after-
thought. He’s been bought
before. Been handed down.
He’s been disowned by the town.
Thrown. Been owned. Down
in the dumps. The slump
in a lumpen world. The slur
of slurry. Slurred speech.
He’s not been heard. He’s not
of the herd.
–
–
–
Once
–
She mentioned she thought
he wanted to die. I had muted
what I knew. Signals now
in the rear view.
=
His quiet eyes quieting
more. His voice holding only
a smidge of the floor. His hands
halting when he fingered pages.
=
The spell in the tone
of his voice gone still.
The window needing
rubbing clean. His leaning
–
on the few syllables
left of our visit.
The sift of a darker spring
through screens.
=
=
=
Some Day
=
We moved in almost
completely, except for
several shelves all in
one room I could not
face. We keep that
door closed. Some day.
=
I don’t know what keeps
me from digging in
and shucking what must
be discarded as if
in a poker game.
=
I blame myself for not
un-filling the shelves.
My idea of wealth
is empty space
inside the house, ready
to fill but never filled.
=
The best gifts are invisible
or no more palpable
than books. And books, too,
get in the way.
=
I love looking
at what is not
there. An affair
of the upstart heart.
–
–
–
The Children, the Parents, the Uncle
–
The children laughed because their parents did not
stand up for the uncle who served
the need of the children and parents whose
quota for ridicule needed to be filled.
The uncle tried to clown with the children,
build a bond, but they were hungry to make fun.
The children sussed out their parents’ attitude
toward the uncle so unlike them who used words
they did not know. Felt their parents egg them on,
sensed he was fair game. Told themselves he would not
know. He had saved to visit them. The children
tried to please their parents by laughing
behind his back. But he could tell.
–
–
–
Love Poem to my Obligations
–
Someone who partly knew me labeled me
a produce-aholic. Accurate. Snappy.
I routinely trot upon the hamster wheel.
Run on full or empty equally.
I run as if I had only so much time
to complete the obligations I gather,
these figurative daffodils, irises, hyacinths,
crocuses, alongside miniscule
wildflowers with flesh petals,
my favorite African daisies
that peek up from the medians
along the highways. Where quality overtakes
quantity. So many obligations like spreadsheets,
less fetching than the profusion of fresh
small growing things.
–
I tend even when I do not intend
to love the host of things that must be done
that I can do. I grew up escaping various
uninspiring people by skittering off
to the university library where I could look out
on peaceful snow from the thirteenth-floor carrel
and let perceptions flow onto pages I carried home
to my upstairs room to peck away on my upright
Underwood machine. Work left-justifies
achievement and success. Better than leaving
a procrastinated sprawl of dirty dishes, unmade bed,
streaky windows, and trash in the bin.
=
My obligations when completed
may mean zilch, and yet, they fuel me. They buoy
my musculature, my little bones,
the place atop my head still healing
from staples left in surgery. My fingers grasping
for a keyboard that knows me better than
the White Tank Mountains, red rock country,
the lithe stems of wildflowers coming
to bloom as spring hints itself awake.
=
=
=

Collaboration
=
I lamplight your nest at half distance
to morning, I lean into darkness.
Maybe you creche me, release
me to my whittled self. I hear cars
=
depart, come back. You might
sense them from a higher place, metallic
insects along gray roadways,
the stops and starts of staccato traffic.
=
I hear shadows mourn the pictures
I bring home that neglect lamplight.
I whisper my troubles to the pastel sheets.
The open windows draw me home.
=
The traffic trebles its collective way.
I hear shadows. I lamplight your nest.
Perhaps you creche me, return me
to my whittled self.
=

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