By Teresa Burns Murphy
Generations of my provincial
forebears pruned passions
with sharp shears
of shame, buried
blossoming desires deep
within the bone
orchard of discarnate dreams. I
examine concrete markers,
search stories written on stones,
pluck wilted flowers mired in mounds of soil.
Venturing into a copse
beyond the cemetery’s edge, I
find branches rooted in humus.
Green shoots sprout from fallen limbs
spirited earthward by an evolutionary wind.
About the Author
Teresa Burns Murphy is the author of a novel, The Secret to Flying (TigerEye Publications) and has a poetry chapbook forthcoming from Prolific Pulse Press. Her stories and poems have been published in several places, including The Broadkill Review, Chicago Quarterly Review, Cool Beans Lit, Gargoyle Magazine, The Mid-Atlantic Review, The Opiate, River and South Review, The Words Faire, and The Write City Review.