floralia - sheila e murphy

I would rather have my personality back 

than concatenate shapes and colors with theories that mean zilch to me 

I look at you laughing at something I did not say and I say 

let's go away where I need not mind your manners

I'm ready to flee mine unceremoniously these awnings 

make me yawn under unsightly rain inching toward a matching drain

You have usurped my sadness that swerves to a whirl of split-second wit like petaled lines 

supposed to surprise it's almost sunrise at the hour of Floralia 

skittering toward the bubble craps table of no clock tock 

where I blancmange my way to leavings to confide in as if

the most heavenly statue not yet cropped into being from a wooden stick

in Kentucky where Minnie Adkins carves away in age 

Meanwhile the bougainvillea rinse the blandness 

as the spines of saguaros in rows with big bird holes offer succor 

of succulents to birds we view within green screened rooms at the Botanical G- 

these dreamy sealed fat plants must titillate thirsty birds 

but you are not a bird you're with me your coffee black and dancing

conversation with strangers like friends about their various tall dogs 

worthy of Westminster but I have no opinion about dogs 

I just know they amount to the equivalent of adult day care 

keeping personalities unlike mine in check 

I’m wearing Iris Apfel glasses not for discerning one hue from another 

but to be seen as my mother used to chant We are other people's scenery 

alongside her summative close to me You wouldn't leave the house in that 

when you can already read into me that of course I would after all 

I'm casual in my formality did you ever happen to think how the future 

seems to overtake the present as though there's this giant riddle 

blundering its way into reality as in narration 

the end is always what everything before it means

There is no Beethoven in my brain just notes for God's sake

so listen if you want like someone who might obey the seams along

a place to sew which I will never do my babysitter's quilts 

sacred me into a memory I hold when the unwelcome rain gets in 

through the open window no longer serving its purpose 

and I wilt and seek the shower and observe the drain accumulating 

various instances of rain that dry fast here among the smooth 

faces Zamboni-ed away from the natural crags and cavities therein

Sheila E. Murphy is a Pushcart-nominated poet. Appearances include Fortnightly Review, Lana Turner, Poetry, Poetry Bay, and others. Most recent book publications are I Want to Be Your Radio (Unlikely Books, 2025), Escritoire (Lavender Ink, 2025), and Permission to Relax (BlazeVOX Books, 2023). She won the Gertrude Stein Poetry Award for Letters to Unfinished J. (Green Integer Press, 2003) and the Hay(ha)ku Book Prize for Reporting Live From You Know Where (Meritage Press, 2018). She lives in Phoenix, Arizona. Her Wikipedia page can be found at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheila_Murphy_(poet)