Matthew Murrey

Greatest Hits

Sputnik sang a ping song
from its airless orbit,
sang a song of war, hot
as an engine, cold
as space or the grave.

There was a counting song
that went body body body
all through my childhood.
Since then, the disappearing song
(those were some dirty wars),
the shock and awe (death metal)
song and the drone song (so cutting
edge) where the refrain
arrives after the blast
(it’s that fast they say).

Space has other songs:
crackles, static, and the hum
from the beginning of time.
Today I heard the spare aria
of waves from two dark,
city-sized, god-heavy stars
spinning into each other
at close to the speed of light,
rippling the very the cloth
of the cosmos and setting off
a brilliance that left in its wake
Earth masses of platinum
and Earth masses of gold.

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Matthew Murrey runs a high school library in Urbana, IL. He’s an NEA Fellowship recipient and has one book of poems, Bulletproof, published by Jacar Press in 2019. He’s had poems published in North American Review, One, Okay Donkey and many other places. He and his partner have two grown sons. His website is at https://www.matthewmurrey.net/