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Maureen McElroy grew up in Boston. She attended Boston University and holds an MFA from Emerson College. She is the author of For Crying Out Loud (Kelsay Books 2024). Her chapbook Car Poems (Finishing Line Press) came out in March of 2020. Her work has appeared in numerous literary magazines, including Nixes Mate, Mothers Always Write, Trampset, Fickle Muses, Literary Hatchet, and Io. She is Co-Chair of the Rozzie Reads Poetry Series sponsored by the Friends of the Roslindale Public Library.

If I Seem Distant

Maureen McElroy

I’m drawing Hopscotch squares
in chalk
my mouth stained cherry Life Saver.
I’m diving off floating docks
logging water
4 feet from Monet’s watercolors
in Paris
on a train through Scotland
sheep-shearing
knees skinned
wool wet and steaming
mist off Ireland’s Cliffs of Moher
peat fires
camp fires
tented fingers
sticky marshmallow
kissing my father’s forehead
two hours dead
dead-heading roses
“Taps” playing
tap and ballet recital at 5
strawberry sequins.

The tap is leaking.
Can’t you hear it?
It’s so screaming loud!

 — Maureen McElroy