Friendly Maude McKinley (poem)
Friendly Maude McKinley
Seeing hands hate
Make sense of Spain and blighter hate
And other handwriting thrown sideways hate
To meander contrary to the bristles hate
Of a strong foreslant hate
For, long ago stock was put in this hate
Pity the backslanter hate
You would guess minor community leaders hate
Had some better role to play hate
Than bullying the young with folklore hate
Charm hate
One of those that dangle off a hook hate
The kind that can be bought hate
The only classing off hate
Is the constant threat of death hate
Let’s escape
Genre: mystery; subgenre: cozy
“Miz Maude!” they say
“You will put yourself out of business that way!”
Not just every morning rolling piecrusts for the diner
But for all the sickening neighbors
Standoffish strangers
Even the aloof Bostonian, Gerald Derwentwater
Some in town whisper he once was married
To gentle Leeanne Summersby
Pampered pet of old Colonel S.
“It’s a pickle,” muses the Rev. Mr. Beauford
“My dear, confide in Jesus, if not in me.”
“How do you suppose they ever met?”
“Truth to tell, now, when’d I last run into her?”
“She’s ailing, I suspect,” says Maude.
“I’ll carry up an apple crumble.”
Shrinking airline passengers
Closeted nursing home attendants
Stricken insomniacs single in double rooms
And the silence of a lamp
Hours inching deep and quiet
Reach for butchery reach for bakery
Scent the lure of candlestick makery
Sweet tiny fakery
Friendly Maude McKinley
Now to Steal
(2018, Stephanie Foster)