Sheila Murphy
The State Tree of Arizona Is Littering the Walkways with Yellow Dust
Floriferous posies dry-spill
Along the ground beneath
Each yellow "Desert Museum"
Lushly abloom and leaving evidence
In wildly warm light
Feathery lovely on the eye
Neighbors want your face
On a wanted poster for failing
To brush off this most perfect
Yellow hue it's up to you to keep
Their allergies at bay all day
Chop away the source code
Of profuse dustlings giving our State a
Reputation
Sheila E. Murphy. Poems have appeared in Poetry, Hanging Loose, Fortnightly Review, and numerous others. Most recent books are Permission to Relax (BlazeVOX Books, 2023) October Sequence: Sections 1-51 (mOnocle-Lash Anti-Press, 2023), and Sostenuto (Luna Bisonte Prods (2023). Murphy received the Gertrude Stein Award for Letters to Unfinished J. (Green Integer Press, 2003). Murphy's book titled Reporting Live from You Know Where (2018) won the Hay(na)Ku Poetry Book Prize Competition from Meritage Press (U.S.A.) and xPress(ed) (Finland). Her Wikipedia page can be found at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheila_Murphy