Spy Poetry: The Internet of Things by Erin Murphy

Editor’s Note: Countless elements go into the making of a riverbed—water salinity level and velocity; the interaction of plants, animals, and micro-organisms; the amount of sunlight; what the earth is made of. The same congruence of infinitessimal events and conditions is at play in our own lives, determining with whom we fall in love, what health issues befall us, and when we take our final breath. We like to think we are self-determining creatures but meanwhile, the great “web of circumstances” is working behind the scenes.  I love how the poet slips from nature to our own human experiences of love and grief, and how the ending encompasses all of it. 

The Internet of Things 
(n.): the networking capability that allows information to be sent and received by objects and devices

The low tide riverbed silt
of things. The cloud-swept

distant hill of things.
The open bedroom window

in spring of things.
The moonlit cricket

symphony of things.
The pitter-patter

tin roof rain of things.
The fifty-year marriage

loose skin of things.
The clipped winter light

of things. The stippled lymph
node of things. The grief.

Oh—the grief. The brief
ecstatic flight of things.

Erin Murphy is an American poet who is credited with inventing the demi-sonnet. She received her B.A. in English and philosophy from Washington College and an MFA in poetry from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst’s MFA Program for Poets & Writers. Murphy is a professor of English and a member of the creative writing faculty at The Pennsylvania State University, Altoona College. Her poem, “The Internet of Things,” appeared in her recent book, Fluent in Blue (Grayson Books, 2024). It originally appeared in Rattle magazine and received the Rattle Poetry Prize Readers’ Choice Award. The poem is posted here with permission of the author.