Ophelia (About a Girl)
             ~Location: Elsinore Castle, Denmark

by Mish (Eileen) Murphy


Slender teenage girl
with kaleidoscope eyes—

you’re simply sexy,
despite
your innocent, pouty mouth—

and you watch everything,

as, wide eyed,
you press
against the cold
stone wall
of the castle lobby,

darting out to press
rosemary, rue,
daisies,
into hands of passersby,

singing scraps
of folk songs
to honor your dead father,

but shrinking into
tapestry shadows when
the King’s guards drag
your boyfriend
through the main doors

and onto a ship bound
for England—

the moody Prince Hamlet,
your childhood sweetheart,
who recently wrote you,

Never
doubt my love.

The King and Queen
sweep past—
you shudder.

You’re supposed to be
needlepointing
a chair cushion.

But if you hid aboard
the next outgoing ship,

you’d catch up with
your love
tomorrow.


* * * * *

Mish (Eileen) Murphy is Assistant Poetry Editor for Cultural Daily (www.CulturalDaily.com). She teaches English/literature online at Polk State College, Lakeland, Florida. A Pushcart nominee, she has published two poetry collections—Fortune Written on Wet Grass (2019) and Sex & Ketchup (2021)—and a poetry chapbook, Evil Me (2020). Mish graduated with a B.A. from New College, Sarasota, in French /Russian, and Columbia College of Chicago, in Fiction Writing/Teaching of Writing. She is also an award-winning digital artist, photographer, and book designer.