BY JODDY MURRAY

Exhale

Something banging around, twizzling and squeaking

inside metal cheeks and anodized eyes—something airy

like the draft inside an egg: diffused, pocked, sulfurous

and made for you to dip a toe in. Hot springs are cooler

than their origins. Recipes of minerals still nostalgic

for all that crystalline home life: shiny geodes breathing

anything that comes in. Whatever you do here, do

sincerely: force is all around and relentless, like gazes

from across the street, those tourists burbling on.

Somber Shade

Imagine the thickness of a lip, how smart it

curls and dips like magnetic filings dancing on

top of a white plate.

How brutally the scene crashes up against

creatures like brine shrimp, hollow

and transparent, easily marked

by curiosity, stamps of sweat,

ethereal cages made of monkey bone, skull.

Somewhere, when you pant,

a mayfly juts its antennae just

to the left, far enough to sense shifts in joy

as two people rattle around here.

Joddy Murray’s chapbook, Anaphora, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2020. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in over 70 journals, including, most recently, The Adirondack Review, Nude Bruce Review, Painted Bride Quarterly, Pembroke Magazine, and Southampton Review. He currently teaches writing and rhetoric in Fort Worth, Texas.