Maddie Baxter: 3 Poems

Mold Remediation

There is no such thing as mold removal.

I am obsessed with painting my nails

in a way that feels like 2014.

Mold can only be remediated

not exterminated.

We are not experts we are just

professionals          we cannot return

your home to normal we

just return it to your

prelims state.

Frank O’hara died from

a dune buggy accident

on the beach.

Is there any other way?

Anyway to get rid of

mold?

American Bird

Milk glass on the movie screen

the dolls I play with have

names

I didn’t give them.

Saorise.

Greta.

Cameras comb their hair without the tender

love of my

overalled hand.

Usually I squint but

I have trouble making

out their strings.

Like a blood eagle I fly

naked on my back

looking up.

Dying is being a doll without the player.

Autumn Poem

The retina cannot focus +

neither can the pen.

The yes sets timer in motion

the confluence pauses the

metronome. There is no

yes and no at the

same time. The orchard

does not bloom and die

at once. But one season, there

is a yes. Pick fruit moments

before decay. Sopping juice is

symmetry. The symmetry is not

purposeful. There is no autumn night

that comes without reason.

There is no snake that sheds

without guilt.

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Madeline Baxter is a 23-year-old poet and copywriter living in Charlotte, NC. She graduated from Wake Forest University in 2019 with a degree in English and Creative Writing. She does not know how to ride a bike and never will.