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?
*Editor’s Note: The italicized portion of this poem refers to lines taken from a Weldon Kees poem.
