Idem
Kevin Murphy

            - For Richard Feynman

Imagine only one electron mov-
ing back and forth, weaving time
through its zigzag from Big Bang to Doomsday,
like a loom’s shuttle moves through its shaft, fly-

ing back and forth weaving together warp
and weft. We talk of time like it’s fabric
that looms over this brief shaft we shuttle
across – the warp through which we thread

our weft. We talk of time like it’s fabric,
when it’s just a term for our slice of this
electron’s run through which we are threaded;
through which we are. Already dead and not

yet born, our slice is just a term within
completed existence. This Universe
in which we are already dead is not
expanding – just seems to from our fragment.

Its existence complete, this Universe:
a zigzag from Big Bang to Doomsday
(where we just seem to expand our fragment)
made of only one electron moving.

At Peak Wetness
Kevin Murphy

                        -After Manjari Sharma

A private moment rendered
most intimately public

your snapshot of water’s motion
as it clothes your subject

envelops her in a fond wet robe
Soft light exposes paths

chosen to map and follow
What decides how

Perhaps beneath the surface
lies a magnetism

water edges toward
searches for

not just thoughtless falling
I watch its stillness

travel her skin in streams
and makeshift waterways

drawing drops that find their grooves
and seem to know where to migrate

Each successive drip eases
into a pattern soaking her

as it moves on to the drain
and disappears

and vanishes

and is gone

About the author:
Kevin Murphy received his MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Idaho. His work has appeared in Heron Tree. He currently resides in Asheville, NC with his person named Shannon.