Erin Murphy
Goodnight Mood
The night has monsters under
the monsters, cobwebs
of clotted logic, jostled
thoughts, jostled gods.
In this rough translation of day,
the darkest sparks come
from shadows in your throat.
No matter what the poets say:
the glass of milk is dim and resin-thick.
The shiver of history shrinks
to the button on the blue black
wool coat you wore in eighth grade,
to the bus token that took you—fugitive
from school—downtown,
scaffold of smoke against a bruised sky.
Blue black or black blue? Blue
blue. Oh, patches of anger,
chiseled misery. See the stars burn
out or drown. You are an old
question. You have been counted
by sheep. It is time
to rock the song to sleep.
Erin Murphy’s most recent poetry books are Human Resources (2025) and Fluent in Blue (2024). Her work has appeared in Ecotone, Women’s Studies Quarterly, The Best of Brevity, Best Microfiction 2024, and elsewhere. She is professor of English at Penn State Altoona and poetry editor of The Summerset Review. Website: www.erin-murphy.com