LONGEVITY, BRIEFLY
No grass is as rooted as Bermuda
with its beard of roots mingling
like sentences in the filth of clarity.
No song has as deep regrets as anthems
trumpeted off of rock-face scabs, plucky
decay that this day sounds as dim as sugar.
You greet whatever rain comes with a smirk,
the kind anybody who steals knows is laughter.
When gravitational waves rub up against
goat cheese pie, when odors I’ve composed
meet the gravel and rickshaw syllables of praise,
you will find another way to build shadows
against my skin, even peppered as it is with age.
***
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, Caliban Online, The Cape Rock, Crack the Spine and Diverse Voices Quarterly. He currently teaches writing and rhetoric in Fort Worth, Texas.
