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)