BOOKMARK
Eucalyptus trees and I do not tolerate wild cold.
We lean on heat and dry leaves quiver in thin wind.
Then new bark comes on to shuck the old.
We keep starting over.
Stiffness prompts our shouldering something.
Poise along the branches soon contagious.
Along roads motion forms a scene.
Presence holds a place for being misunderstood.
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Sheila E. Murphy’s most recent books are Permission to Relax (BlazeVOX Books, 2023) October Sequence: Sections 1-51 (mOnocle-Lash Anti-Press, 2023), and Sostenuto (Luna Bisonte Prods (2023). Murphy is the recipient of the Gertrude Stein Award for her book Letters to Unfinished J. (Green Integer Press, 2003). Murphy's book titled Reporting Live from You Know Where (2018) won the Hay(na)Ku Poetry Book Prize Competition from Meritage Press (U.S.A.) and xPress(ed) (Finland).