All-American Poem

by Matthew Dickman

*All American Poem* plumbs the ecstatic nature of our daily lives. In these unhermetic poems, pop culture and the sacred go hand in hand. As Matthew Dickman said in an interview, he wants the “people from the community that I come from”—a blue-collar neighborhood in Portland, Oregon—to get his poems. “Also, I decided to include anything I wanted in my poems. . . . Pepsi, McDonald’s, the word ‘ass.’” *There is no one to save us because there is no need to be saved. I’ve hurt you. I’ve loved you. I’ve mowed the front yard. When the stranger wearing a sheer white dress covered in a million beads slinks toward me like an over-sexed chandelier suddenly come to life, I take her hand in mine. I spin her out and bring her in. This is the almond grove in the dark slow dance. It is what we should be doing right now. Scraping for joy . . .*