Raven            
(Birds, Frogs, & Clouds Cento #2*)

by Mish (Eileen) Murphy


Raven would
fly in circles over land and sea
with the sound of wings

beating
and twirling.
She smelled of

perfume,
saffron,           
and smoke-filled flames

in a circular box.
She was a woman
who could

at the same time be
both old and
young.


* * * * *

*Translator: Ian Johnson

Mish (Eileen) Murphy is Associate Poetry Editor for Cultural Daily magazine and teaches English/Literature at Polk State College, Florida. She just published her third book of poetry (fourth book overall), the collection Sex & Ketchup (Concrete Mist Press Feb. 2021). Fortune Written on Wet Grass (Wapshott Press April 2020) was her first full length collection. Her second book Evil Me was published August 2020 (Blood Pudding Press). She’s had more than 100 individual poems published in journals such as Tinderbox, Writing in a Woman's Voice, and Thirteen Myna Birds, and many others.