Alone, by Mark A. Murphy

Alone

What do I care for the company of men,
I,  who would sentence them all
to hard labour, death, for the price of a fuck?
 
Now I hear you making your excuses,
you leave nothing out, except the price
of hope, as if hope could save you
 
from God’s opprobrium. Shame me
with your godless words, I am a girl alone,
a girl without God, a girl without a mate.
 
I have inured myself against love,
against men, and I’m too exhausted to pose.
Leave me be. Leave me be. Leave me be.
 
"But my darling," says Tolouse, "I will love you,
my black stockinged girl, as if you were all mine,
as if our love was always meant to be."

​Mark A. Murphy

Mark A. Murphy’s first full length collection, Night-watch Man & Muse, was published in 2013 by Salmon Poetry, Eire.