I wake up in a room that
I have never seen empty.
It takes my body
more than a few minutes
to un-ampersand.
It feels like remembering snow
in the absence of snow.
Like running the tongue
around the teeth not knowing
which does the feeling.
Dear everyone, everywhere.
I’m going to die
from a missing password.
Or from the shopper
ahead of me watching
the checker scan and bag.
The joy of my day
is making up
ridiculous answers to
“What time is it?”
I promise myself if X then Y.
After coffee it occurs to me
It was not affection that felt
like violence.
It was violence.
Patricia Colleen Murphy retired from Arizona State University after 31 years of teaching Creative Writing and Magazine Production. Her poetry collection Bully Love was chosen by Tom Lombardo as the winner of the 2019 Press 53 Award for poetry, and her poetry collection Hemming Flames was chosen by Stephen Dunn as the winner of the 2016 May Swenson Poetry Award. Her work has appeared in many journals including The Iowa Review, Quarterly West, The American Poetry Review, North American Review, Poetry Northwest, Third Coast, Natural Bridge, Black Warrior Review, Copper Nickel, Puerto del Sol, and others. A chapter of her memoir-in-progress was published as a chapbook by New Orleans Review.