Erin Murphy
Taxonomy of Turbulence
Passengers and bags jounce like balls
in a lottery machine. You win if you
walk away cussing but not concussed.
The pilot did not warn us about rough air
or layoffs or divorce or white islands
on an X-ray. He says Welcome to Boston
when we thought we'd landed in LA.
Bio
Erin Murphy's eighth book of poems, Human Resources, is forthcoming from Salmon Poetry of Ireland. Her work has appeared in such journals as The Georgia Review, Field, Southern Humanities Review, Glass, and Women's Studies Quarterly. Her awards include The Normal School Poetry Prize, the Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Prize, and a Best of the Net award. She is editor of three anthologies from the University of Nebraska Press and SUNY Press and serves as Poetry Editor of The Summerset Review. She is Professor of English at Penn State Altoona. Website: www.erin-murphy.com.