She Runs

by Sheila E. Murphy

She runs for office, and she runs again. She runs out of flour and oranges but retains her keepsake jewelry wedged into an heirloom box that smells like snuff. She runs from event to event then blankly stands to be caught symbolically in a photo to be splayed all over Sheepland. She runs where viewers equate ubiquity with importance, vitality, even leadership. She runs avoiding at all costs a prickly answer to any number of trick questions that might erupt. She runs with her dishtowel colored hair swinging behind her to affirm that she belongs for the long haul in the role for which she always runs.

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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). Her book, 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). Her Wikipedia page is here.