"a room of one's own"
by Samanatha Strong Murphey

Marie B Gauthiez, Installation for Jardin Intérieur at Transformer (Washington, DC), 2025
Photographed by Vivian Marie Doering
Mixed media
Artworks featured in the installation: “Please save me,” “Attributional Error 4,” “Blue Mountain,” and “Tilt your head back”
Courtesy of the artist
Artist Website, Instagram

the mouth was too wide        
the begging mouth    
of the clouded crystal vase

was too wide for the bouquet    
the stems all flopped to one side                
bruising    
   
she thought she had picked enough                

enough, a minnow between her fingers          
glittering quickly and always        
away        

her clumsy hands
her expectation
fumbling the moon              
dropping the moon
the moon cracked  
                 
on the roof pitch
oozed yellow light down the house

the house pressed her          
hand against its glass      

she pressed infinity into four taut walls        
timid knuckle knocking          
on her neck      

she worked her feet into the creaks of old longing              
older than her      

for months she’d been walking      
     (knock knock)      
across pine needles      
looking for        
pine needles          

she’d gotten the tattoo
with a singular intention:      
to entice          
a singular thumb        
to graze admiringly across        
her wrist
she pushed        
wrinkles off the      
pilled      
electric blanket on the bed              
her pilled body
swaying across the        
room                        

how now
the room        

the cord dangling    
at the foot      

there was no outlet                          
close enough      
to ever make it          
hot

Samantha Strong Murphey

Poet’s Website



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