Stamen I (2002)
Charlie Murphy
Stamen I 2002
after Charlie Murphy’s Retort 2013
Brittle bodies growing under glass
like some abandoned experiment,
infinitely fragile,
as if someone held the inside of a woman,
a soul, and blew into it,
drew it into these frozen tubes, these tentacles
to catch whatever the wind might carry
in the way of blood,
of something sexual
the touch of pollen, passion,
preserved like a ruby drop
inside the flowering glass.
