Ruby Hansen Murray
Under Scalloped Clouds
Last night at sunset, I walked west on Sunny Sands.
Color ripples TV; a man eats facing the road,
his wife in profile, the kitchen beyond.
The Bergs across a field of green
backed up to a jumble of cottonwood,
their family contained.
David wades in grass, searching the new calf
a bull stands by, one eye on the straw hat.
These days, our rose sprawls a yellow fountain,
buttercups nod to bird shadow.
In the tumble of grass, a speedboat’s lime hull.
Ruby Hansen Murray is a citizen of the Osage and Cherokee Nations, and the regular culture columnist for the Osage News. Her essays have won The Iowa Review and Montana Nonfiction Prizes and Notable Best American Essay 2025. “On Sunny Sands” published by Red Bird Chapbooks is forthcoming in 2027. Manuscripts have been finalist for Trio House Louise Bogan, Burnside Review Press, and Beloit’s Chad Walsh Chapbook Prize. Poetry appears in Poetry, Nashville Review, The Hopkins Review, and elsewhere.
Instagram: @ruby_hansen_murray