​Still Life with Skull, 1850, by Matthew Murrey

Louis Jules Duboscq (French, 1817–1886). [Still life with skull], ca. 1850. Daguerreotype. Courtesy of the George Eastman Museum

​Still Life with Skull, 1850

Not dancing, dangling--
stillborn bones    
stand still in a bell jar. 

The hourglass has been 
flipped, and I’ll cry 
over spilt sand.  It’s endless

what I can cry about: 
lust, thirst, thorns, 
debt, and death, of course. 

I won’t cry when I’m dead;  
a skull has no eyes 
to wipe dry.  Little Jesus 

still dead on the cross is thin 
as a minnow.  A miracle  
is every day I am still alive.

Matthew Murrey

​Matthew Murrey: "My poems have appeared in many journals such as Prairie Schooner, Poetry East, and Rattle.  I received an NEA Fellowship in Poetry a number of years ago, and my first book manuscript, Bulletproof, will be published soon by Jacar Press.  I am a high school librarian in Urbana, Illinois where I live with my partner.  We have two adult sons.  My website is at https://www.matthewmurrey.net/"