Insomnia Chronicles LV
The night is full of insomniacs googling insomnia. The woman who wrote a popular children’s book about grief to help her own kids process the loss of their father was just convicted of murdering him. Even my phone objects to murder. It keeps autocorrecting to my last name. I never realized how much Murphy and murder have in common. I prefer the Irish pronunciation: Moor-fee and moor-der. Today is St. Patrick’s Day. Many Murphys were murdered in the Potato Famine. That seems almost quaint, doesn’t it? Death by vegetable. Now we use drones and Tomahawk missiles. We block oil supplies and collapse power grids. From the sky, Cuba is as dark as a coal miner’s lung. Meanwhile, I order Guinness mac & cheese from Instacart and watch the Oscars on DVR. Kate Hudson’s necklace cost $35M. Demi Moore looks like a bird after the Exxon Valdez spill. Only one presenter mentions Palestine. Only one letter stands between fiction and friction. “Grief Author Guilty of Poisoning Husband,” the headlines say. She’ll serve life without parole while other murderers clean up in stocks, crypto, and votes. Once upon a time we let this happen. Where are our convictions?
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Erin Murphy is the author or editor of more than a dozen books, most recently Human Resources, Mother as Conjunction: Lyric Essays, and Fluent in Blue, winner of the 2025 American Book Fest Best Book Award in Poetry. Swoon: New and Selected Poems is forthcoming in 2026. Website: www.erin-murphy.com
So much going on in the insomniac’s poem. Thanks for writing it Erin and sharing it Mark.
So much to admire in this insomniac’s poem. Thanks for writing it Erin and curating it Mark.
I like this a lot. That last sentence resonates in so many ways. Yes indeed, where are our convictions?