The night is full of insomniacs Googling insomnia. How old is Taylor Swift? I ask my phone. 33. Her Jesus year—the age Jesus was when he died. The Austrian poet Georg Trakl died at 27. No one worships him except writers trying to resurrect the silent dead. But he died by cocaine, not crucifixion. Whoa—I just realized it sounds like fiction. That could be the atheist’s motto: CruciFICTION. Wednesday I told a colleague his comparison of small colleges and big universities was “like apples and orangutans.” I paused mid-debate to say “I can’t believe I’ve never thought of that phrase before. I need you to take a beat and appreciate it.” He smiled. But he probably didn’t change his mind. When was the last time someone changed my mind, shook me out of my smug bubble? We’re all self-driving cars weaving through city streets. The moon looks for herself in every puddle.
Erin Murphy’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in Best Microfiction 2024, Ecotone, Waxwing, Guesthouse, Rattle, Women’s Studies Quarterly, and elsewhere. She is author or editor of more than a dozen books, most recently Human Resources (forthcoming from Salmon Poetry) and Fluent in Blue (Grayson Books, April 2024). She is professor of English at Penn State Altoona and poetry editor of The Summerset Review. See erin-murphy.com.
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Yeah. This is how it feels some nights. "Insomniacs Googling insomnia." "We are all self-driving cars weaving through streets." Such a good, modern metaphor.