Photo by Manuel bonadeo on Unsplash
Hilda wields a curious power with her ritually unhappy face. She knows she is surrounded by people pleasers who cringe as they watch her wrinkle her expression on Zoom then work to move her face muscles back to neutral smooth. She refuses to soothe their puppy little eyes. Disguising the fact of their working harder than any meeting can be worth. Few remember the time she was chastised for obstruction of these tedious routines and promptly backed down, whimpering in private one-on-one with each other member of the group, practically begging to keep her job. Now she’s back to old normal, bittering it up, inhaling everything she tells herself she wants.
Sheila E. Murphy‘s work has appeared or is forthcoming in Verse Daily, Fortnightly Review, Poetry, Lana Turner, Hanging Loose, and others. Most recent book: Escritoire (Lavender Ink, 2025). Wikipedia page can be found at: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheila_Murphy
