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      May 29, 2024Midwest HousesMather Schneider

      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 #83 – Collaboration

      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.”