The Party

Matt McBride

Days are pigeon-stitched, 
gratuitous with clouds. 
Nights are spent 
eating leftover sheet cakes, 
their occasions forgotten. 
The letters bleed: 
admonishments of leaf blowers 
we use to sweep popped balloons 
off our yards. 
Our imaginations are a ranch house 
with porcelain horses 
on the end tables. 
In the basement, our heart: 
a midwestern child at a drumkit, 
starting in on the most boring solo.