Submissions by ryemurphey

My four-year-old daughter says she learned a new word. “Chrysanthemum, chrysanthemum, means flower in Spanish, daddy!” She says this as she dances with the anthem--auburn tresses spiraling her lithe frame spinning, twirling an imaginary lariat, “Chrysanthemum, Chrysanthemum, Chrysanthemum!”

She sounds it with such joy, the fervor of the first grandiose word she’s never spoken, so mellifluous the khrusos blast of Bach trumpets blaring across her synapses, before all the swaggering juggernauts of Oxford invade her with overcrowded catalogues of idiomatic intonations.

I will...

All the enlightened instructors are discussing
Strategies of literary analysis for the advanced
Placement exam. There are methods passed around
Like lip-liner to try on all the other middle-aged women
Who wanted to be princesses instead of mothering
The progeny of despair, poverty, and racism

The facilitator stands open-faced staring into the thick southern
Air spouting her flaccid persiflage, wiry hair striking lighting bolts
With each positive affirmation; thirty-two years of prosody carefully
Scalpeled away with a nail file under blue-veined...