MIDWEST HOUSES
Full of a million things
that cost a dollar apiece
*
Nothing is truly old or truly modern
everything could be anyone’s
even the family pictures on the walls
*
Giant Sears and Roebuck dollhouses
do people live here
or stuffed animals?
*
Spice racks of hollow glass idols
that are never touched
salt is the one true god
*
Shoot or poison animals
to keep them off the lawn
replace with plastic deer and flamingoes
*
No stone lions
at the entryways
only ceramic frogs
*
Humid hairy armpit summer afternoons
the grass they mow
and mow and mow and mow
*
The thunder
of a drunk father
home from bowling night
*
A man sets his alarm clock
clicking in the dark
like an S.O.S
*
At Grandpa’s
small circle of family
medicine ball conversation
*
At the end of the summer
our last kiss
tastes like bug-spray
—from Rattle #83, Spring 2024
__________
Mather Schneider: “I don’t like trying to come up with something clever for these things. I write poetry and prose when there is something I want to put down. I don’t like writing for the hell of it.”
