Map Literary: A Journal of Contemporary Writing and Art
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    • On Experimental Fiction
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    • Reb Livingston, from "Bombyonder"
    • Craig Foltz, "Without Stigma"
  • Nonfiction
    • Martha Wiseman, "Loose Ends"
    • Jan Jolly, "Through My Father's Glasses"
    • Kristina Moriconi, "Still Looking"
    • Wm. Anthony Connolly, "IGY"
    • Cal Freeman, "Loosestrife"
    • W.F. Lantry, "The Strange Beauty of the Unfamiliar"
    • Michael Roloff, "Accretion"
    • Andrew Sunshine, "John Hancock's John Hancock"
    • Diane Payne, "3 micro memoirs"
    • Luc Sante, "Flesh and Bone"
    • Isobel O'Hare, "Failure: A Love Letter"
    • Melissa Wiley, "Barbed Wire Fence"
    • Ashley Wilkinson, "fractional distillation"
  • Art
Picture

MATTHEW MCBRIDE

from The Mourners Forget Which Funeral They Are At

*

Bulbs slid loose from fixtures.

Bricked in front of my door,
pillow sandbags
set against a flood of milk.

The night skies 
crowned with astronauts,

and underneath, me
covering myself 
with false eyelashes. 

*

In the dream,
I interrupted the autopsies
of every woman I’d slept with,

one after another.

Every day was
its own hospital.

I bruised white
as a peony.

*

There was senselessness, 
collective nouns,
but only one object.

There was the time I spent 
not learning piano.

My memories felt like commercials
without products.

Bodies repeated themselves.

I wished 
I was in each passing plane.

*

Every time I got home
all my objects
had been wrapped 
in bubble wrap.

Anything spoken
was extra.

I got blurrier close up.

The bedsheets turned 
into smoke;

the rain continued an exegesis
on meaninglessness.

*

Tape yellowed
and became visible.

Shame waved 
like migrations of dead birds
inside me.

The TV’s playing yesterday for me.

The bones of small plants.

There were only two people,
and I wasn’t one of them.

​
Copyright © November 2017 Map Literary and Matthew McBride

Picture
Matt McBride's work has appeared in or is forthcoming from Across the Margin, Cream City Review, Diagram, FENCE, Mississippi Review, Ninth Letter, PANK, and Typo amongst others. His most recent chapbook, Cities Lit by the Light Caught in Photographs, was published by H_NGM_N books in 2012. He holds an MFA from Bowling Green State University and a PhD from the University of Cincinnati. Currently, he is a lecturer in the Department of Rhetoric at the University of Iowa. 



published by
The Department of English
College of Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences
The William Paterson University of New Jersey
Copyright © 2012-2022 Map Literary
Map Literary

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  • About
    • Masthead
    • Submissions
    • Rachel Wetzsteon Chapbook Award
    • NJ High School Writing Contest
    • In Print
    • Subscribe
    • Links
    • Internship Opportunity
    • WPU MFA
  • Poetry
    • Richard Ryal
    • Sherwood Anderson
    • Mark DeCarteret
    • Dennis Hinrichsen Poetry
    • Daniel Biegelson
    • Natan Last
    • Jim Daniels Poetry
    • Michael Chang
    • D E Steward
    • Benjamin Paloff Poetry
    • David Dodd Lee
    • Isabelle Doyle
    • Kathleen Heil
    • Leonard Kress
    • Lauren Tess
    • Cesca Janece Waterfield
    • Billy Cancel Poetry
    • Scott Minar
    • Greg Glazner
    • Bruce McRae
    • Maureen Thorson
  • Fiction
    • On Experimental Fiction
    • Mark Cassidy, "How I Met My Wife"
    • Emily Trachtenberg, "Plum"
    • Hector Donovan-Gonzalez
    • Christopher Linforth, "Zia"
    • Jenessa Abrams, "You Never Wish That Upon Anyone"
    • Eros Livieratos, "On Feeling"
    • Halsted M. Bernard, "Your Hands"
    • Justin Meckes, "The Gash"
    • Reb Livingston, from "Bombyonder"
    • Craig Foltz, "Without Stigma"
  • Nonfiction
    • Martha Wiseman, "Loose Ends"
    • Jan Jolly, "Through My Father's Glasses"
    • Kristina Moriconi, "Still Looking"
    • Wm. Anthony Connolly, "IGY"
    • Cal Freeman, "Loosestrife"
    • W.F. Lantry, "The Strange Beauty of the Unfamiliar"
    • Michael Roloff, "Accretion"
    • Andrew Sunshine, "John Hancock's John Hancock"
    • Diane Payne, "3 micro memoirs"
    • Luc Sante, "Flesh and Bone"
    • Isobel O'Hare, "Failure: A Love Letter"
    • Melissa Wiley, "Barbed Wire Fence"
    • Ashley Wilkinson, "fractional distillation"
  • Art