by Erin Murphy

Quixote charging vicious windmills.
Prince Charming and his glass slipper 
mission. A widower sweeping the beach 
for treasure left behind by tourists 
or the tide. Water seeking its own level. 
My friend who found his birth mother 
three weeks before she died.

Erin Murphy’s eighth book of poems, Human Resources, is forthcoming from Salmon Poetry. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Georgia Review, Southern Poetry Review, Women’s Studies Quarterly, and elsewhere. Her awards include The Normal School Poetry Prize, the Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Prize, and a Best of the Net award. She is Professor of English at Penn State Altoona and serves as Poetry Editor of The Summerset Review. Website: erin-murphy.com