Chris Shipman

The Movie My Murderer Makes

My murderer sits in row F, seat 3, just behind my wife and me, in row E, seats 3 and 4.
Seinfeld finishes his last bit, something about the unfortunate slits between the walls of
bathroom stalls, and how they don’t reach the floor, making your face and your feet and
your fear a little visible, and everyone else a little like a voyeur. The coliseum fills with
laughter, applause, spilled cocktails. My murderer laughs. My murderer applauds. My
murderer wails. Seinfeld leaves the stage and things die down after a bit. I hear my
murderer take a sip of something I imagine to be murky and brown, but I don’t turn
around. Ice cubes clink. Seinfeld returns and asks the audience for questions. About
anything. My murderer screams, “Did you fuck Elaine?” Seinfeld refuses to acknowledge
my murderer. My murderer continues, “did George fuck Elaine, did Kramer, did anyone
fuck Elaine?” Seinfeld refuses to acknowledge my murderer. My wife and I don’t talk
about my murderer the whole way home. Seinfeld was so funny.

Author: Chris Shipman

Most recently, Chris Shipman is co-author with Vincent Cellucci of A Ship on the Line (Unlikely Books), co-author with Brett Evans of T. Rex Parade (Lavender Ink), author of Cat Poems (Kattywompus Press), and author of a chapbook of short prose pieces, The Movie My Murderer Makes (The Cupboard). His poems and prose appear in journals such as Cimarron Review, PANK, and Salt Hill, among many others. Shipman’s poem, “The Three-Year Crossing,” was a winner of the Motionpoems Big Bridges prize, judged by Alice Quinn. Shipman lives in New Orleans with his wife and daughter and teaches English and creative writing at St. Martin’s Episcopal School.

Plume: Issue #55 February 2016