These three poems by Matt McBride are atavistic, imagining gods small enough for us to see…
by: Matt McBride
The God of Applause
A bleach-blooded fascist
finishes his speech.
I am breath of the crowd
as one imagined animal.
The celebrity guest smiles,
showing pastel teeth.
I am spectacle’s remainder.
A field of uniformed children, willing
to risk marvelous injury for you.
My thousand glass hands shatter
and are remade each day.
I am not awe, but rather
the desire for awe.
The God of Snow
The world looks emptied of itself
through my milk glass eyes.
In an oarless porcelain boat,
atop an ocean of rice,
I sit.
My breath doves.
Low whistle
of deflating clouds.
My hands, empty surgical gloves,
lie folded on my lap.
An infinity of doves
desquamates above.
Please remember,
the largest part of you
is nothing.
The God of Travel Plazas
My temple’s a great beige vacancy
swept with light. Inside, you
do not apologize for need.
The bathrooms are large and doorless.
The coffee’s expensive but hot;
the coffee’s expensive but cold.
Whatever you can want:
a quarter pizza
hard with cheese,
dried animal muscle
in vacuum-sealed plastic.
My bald geese, be blessed.
Your passage traces a letter
of the infinite name.
Matt McBride’s work has recently appeared in or is forthcoming from Action, Spectacle, Collidescope, Conduit, The Cortland Review, Figure 1, Guernica, Impossible Task, The Laurel Review, The Missouri Review, The Rupture, Rust+Moth, and Zone 3 among others. He is the author of one full-length poetry collection, City of Incandescent Light, published by Black Lawrence Press in 2018, and four chapbooks. His most recent, Prerecorded Weather, co-written with Noah Falck, won the 2022 James Tate Prize and is available at SurVision Books.
