Philly Poetry Chapbook Review is pleased to feature Max McDonough’s poem “Cheesecake Factory” as our second monthly featured poem from a full-length book for Issue 9: Summer 2025. You can find more poetry in their book, Python with a Dog Inside It now available from Black Lawrence Press.
Cheesecake Factory
I can’t get over the fact of your clean smile,
your bowl of jambalaya pasta,
even as a germ of pain beds down
in my lungs. I was folding jeans as a “model”
in the strip mall’s manufactured musk.
& afterwards, in the lush vacancy
of the nighttime lot, floodlit after warm rain,
beneath its dome of electricity & sheen—
I held the hand of the first boy I liked,
our digits interlocked in percolating fire
when a shock unzipped across
my shoulder, the axis
of my neck, & we turned to face
a xenon blast of headlights,
a black pickup
following us.
Mist
across its windshield. Light jagged across
that mist. We walked. The engine growled closer
then farther as we cut through a corridor of SUVs
until the pickup approached again
around the bend, & my shadow, as if sudden
in the bright blur, grew taller than I was.
Can I say? I love very much being
at this table at the Cheesecake Factory with you,
& can I tell you about the rainy night,
the engine sound &
the human eyes I imagined behind
the truck’s glass, its blitz of light
behind me everywhere I go.
I say, Don’t let go of my hand.
About the Poem
Is there any place gayer than The Cheesecake Factory? This poem lives in the weirdness of the suburban mall spaces a lot of us grew up visiting (or loitering in!), places that feel like they could be anywhere and nowhere at once. For me, it’s a landscape that brings disparate experiences into association—in this case, connection and danger.
Author Bio
Max McDonough’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in POETRY, The New York Times, Best New Poets, AGNI, T Magazine, The Adroit Journal, and Gulf Coast, among others. He earned his MFA at Vanderbilt University and lives in Philadelphia, PA. Python with a Dog Inside It is his debut collection.
From Python with a Dog Inside It
Set on the marshlands of working-class southern New Jersey, Python with a Dog Inside It, the debut collection by poet Max McDonough, traces the tangled story of two gay brothers as they endeavor to survive their mother’s erratic and escalating violence. They retreat to the privacy of suburban woods and swamps, a world of their own glimmering with ruin and possibility: abandoned furniture, mud-caked jewelry, a time machine. The poems in this collection occupy, as Judith Herman describes it, the space between “the will to deny horrible events and the will to proclaim them aloud.” Ultimately, Python with a Dog Inside It is not only a story of survival, but one of redemption. By proclaiming the events of a particular, harrowing childhood, McDonough invents a future beyond it, one marked by radical openness, hope’s flame brighter for the darkness.
Available at: Black Lawrence Press
Contents
Chapbook Poem: The Blessed Knot by Li-Young Lee
“A well-made poem is a knot, but not a tangle. The well-made knot of a poem can disentangle readers from illusion, to free them from confusion. Poetry is a form of disillusionment.” Read the July Chapbook Poem by Li-Young Lee along with words from the poet.
“This work is an archive of my attempts to become more familiar with who I am, and why I am here, to immerse myself in these ancient spiritual questions…” Check out five poems and five images by Laynie Browne along with a few words from the poet.
Book Excerpt: Creating Space by Lisa Sewell
“Yoga, the walks, and the writing became a daily exercise in paying attention—to the world, to the bodies in the world around me and to my own body…” Read the Excerpt Poem of the Month for July 2025 by Lisa Sewell along with words from the poet.
“My poetry tries to examine … the difference between the lives we live inside ourselves and the lives we expose to other people.” Read five poems by William Doreski along with a few words from the poet.
July ’25: Poetry Readers Wanted
Read a note from editor Aiden Hunt about PCR’s Summer poetry and new poetry reader opportunities brought by our growing original poetry submissions.
Four Poems by allison whittenberg
“I grew up as a film buff and I loved reading Hollywood Babylon. Over the years, I have learned to separate the truth from the myths.” Read four poems by allison whittenberg along with a few words from the poet.
Chapbook Poem: August Peaches by Winshen Liu
“I wanted to sit with a particular end-of-summer indulgence, where a host has saved specialty foods to welcome visiting friends and family–fancy chocolate, favorite sodas, a certain snack.” Read a poem from Winshen Liu’s chapbook Paper Money along with words from the poet.
Book Excerpt: Cheesecake Factory by Max McDonough
“This poem lives in the weirdness of the suburban mall spaces a lot of us grew up visiting (or loitering in!), places that feel like they could be anywhere and nowhere at once.” Read a poem from Max McDonough’s chapbook along with words from the poet.
Three Poems by Alexandra Meyer
“Love had made me stronger in a lot of ways, but also showed me the weakest parts of myself that were left crystallized for him to see. This was much like wood morphing into rock during the petrification process.” Read three poems by Alexandra Meyer along with words from the poet.
Three Poems by Kristiane Weeks-Rogers
“Anchored by sensory detail, the poem journeys between childhood safety and adult experience in a canyon town shaped by rivers and monsoons. … This poem is a meditation on time, tastes, and tenderness of memory.” Read three poems by Kristiane Weeks-Rogers along with words from the poet.
Chapbook Poem: The Seventh Age of Shakespeare’s Father by Scott LaMascus
“This poem hit me hard last winter, sitting a moment near my late father, as our family was trying to absorb the meaning of his ALS diagnosis … I wondered, if ‘all the world’s a stage,’ what role had I just been assigned?” Read the featured Chapbook Poem of the Month for September 2025 along with words from the poet.
Book Excerpt: Landscape with footprints in ash by Selma Asotić
“When I want to sound smart, I say things like: a poet is one who leaves. When I accept that I’m not very smart, mostly just perplexed and a little scared, I write poems about ghosts and circle farms.” Read a poem from Asotić’s new book, Say Fire, along with words from the poet.
“All of my encounters with the U.S. healthcare system follow the protocols of the ridiculous. This poem, couched in the conventions of the contemporary sonnet, explores my latest, decisive encounter with a doctor’s office.” Read three poems by Robin Arble along with words from the poet.
September ’25: Best of the Net Nominations
Editor Aiden Hunt announces Philly Chapbook Review’s Best of the Net 2026 anthology nominations in this editor’s note and provides links to the nominated poems.
Verses of Mourning: in the aftermath by Jessica Nirvana Ram
“[Ram] presents a revealing and heartbreaking collection that asks the reader to think about what they remember the most about those they have lost.” Read Alex Carrigan’s full review.
“This poem reckons with our capitalist, product-driven society to ask people why disabled stories are only relevant if they portray the ‘other’ overcoming trauma to become abled people’s inspiration porn.” Read three poems by Makena Metz along with words from the poet.