M. A. Schaffner

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Rewind, stop; no, already the war
has lost its marketing appeal.
What I miss most are the stories
of celebrities’ inconsequential crimes,
and politicians’ unsurprising
peccadilloes. Turn everything off
for the average weekend and return
to the same outrage, repeated like
a flogging of the visual cortex.
Endorphins kick in, but only enough
to level the peaks, so the hours become
uniformly dully painful. You ask
who benefits, and the same type of face
floats to the surface like a lifeless fish.
Elizabeth Bathory, Hungarian countess,
thought to preserve her youth by bathing –
first in the blood of virgins, then
anyone really. So the war continues,
not for our entertainment, but for those
who ask us in for lunch, then run the bath.

Slower Time

Summer arrives like a friend you don’t know,
buys you a drink and tells you a tale
of the old days you don’t quite remember.
Soon you’re in a crowd, dining al fresco
at tiny tables clumping in the sun,
your nostrils scorched by pollen, your sweat 
    dripping
relentlessly onto the tablecloth.
You want to ask something but he’s gone,
leaving you with the check and a number
you later find to be disconnected.
For months afterward you’re trailed by insects.
Don’t think it’s personal; you know it is.
The sun acts familiar; each time you meet,
there’s a hearty backslap that leaves you sore.
And the sky, so blue, is the eye of a woman
you see at a party and will never have. 
The days grow longer like a minimum sentence.
The land crinkles like an old brown leaf.
At the first hint of coolness you think you’re saved
by a new friend. Name’s Autumn. He gets you a job
on the night shift you discover, too late.

M. A. Schaffner’ first collection of poems, The Good Opinion of Squirrels, won the Washington Writers’ Center publication prize and the Columbia Book Award. “When not writing poetry, I work as a civil servant in Washington, where I spend my lunchtimes feeding the lineal descendants of the squirrels fed by Ambrose Bierce a century ago.”