Miguel Murphy

Cy Twombly

With eyes like a quatrefoil
the nurse draws my heat into a glass.
Cold tumbler; a diagnosis—
Daylight
like starlight in a separate ditch. In 1961,
the artist’s Ferragosto V, or Empire of Flora.

In 2007, think of them. In their empty sun,
an empty mirror, white.
Let me explain,
I’ll rip the gruesome petal from my arm—

A year. Watch how it splatters into a vial.

Miguel Murphy is most recently the author of the collection of poetry Detainee. He lives in Southern California, where he teaches at Santa Monica College.