A Poem by Matt McBride
The maid, bent like a paperclip
isn’t here or is here.
Her plastic rosary
hanging from the neck of an empty Windex bottle.
On the wall
a pastel street scene and Barbara Bush.
Under a layer of dust
the carpeting is patterned with fleur-de-lis’
a fitting flag
for the aphasic dolphin
who helms the sad France of this slum.
Periodically, you’ll hear a TV turn on or off.
On a scalloped paper coaster
you write a psalm.
It starts,
Standing with one hand to smooth your hair
at a small window green with rain
and ends with an abandoned 55’ Plymouth Savoy
near the Golden Gate bridge.
A guilty wind
disturbs two feral cats, mid-coitus in the alley
which are really your shadow
which is really the ink held in these letters,
which is really a roundabout way of asking
will you be my stranger?
_______________________________________________
Matt McBride is a relatively recent graduate of Bowling Green State University’s MFA program. His chapbook, The Space between Stars, was released last March on Kent State’s Wick Poetry Press. Additionally, he has recently published work in Alice Blue, Cranky, Phoebe, Poet Lore, and The Toledo City Paper. He works as an instructor at Bowling Green State University, writing in the small margins his life allows.
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