LaDonnaWitmer

Mood: Finito
Drinking: More Tea

bonnie & clyde

so let’s be done with this day
let’s hide it away
in a box built so strong
even thieves leave it lay.

and let’s be done with this town
let’s just watch it all drown
out there where the sun
setsall her colors down.

love, let’s be done with this story
let’s blaze out in glory
then people can say
that we never were boring.

-Lo, who needs to stop with the rhyming.

Mood: Overrun
Drinking: All Done

The Pigeons Are Hatching a Plot

You are so afraid of getting dirty,
you will never find me beautiful.

And I am beautiful,
though not flashy and frightening,
not dashing and delight-ening
with soaring songs
or fanciful flights.

I am as gray as a stone
and white as a bone
and you can’t imagine
all the places I’ve flown

because you’re too distracted
by my leprous left foot
with its one remaining
dangling toe.

(I lost the other two to a
careless bicycle wheel
which also flattened the
plump crumb I was planning
to make my next meal.)

I walk with a bob and
a weave and a bob and a
what are you laughing at?
You are no more graceful than I
with your bunion toes
and your whisky woes.

All your children are mean to me.
Even your holy men throw rocks
and your grandmothers
(armed with Oldsmobiles)
can decimate whole flocks.

I’ve endured the most
embarrassing slurs,
you call me
“rat with wings” and other,
more indelicate things.

But someday I’ll show you.
Someday you’ll see.
We pigeons
are much more dangerous
than we’ve led you to believe.

-Lo, reading too much into it once again.

Mood: Dusty
Drinking: Tea

A Joyful Noise

Praise Jesus
just a little bit louder.
Shout to the Lord
with all of your power.

And when the heathens say,
“Can you turn it down a bit?”
well, show them how to glorify God
through your brand new subwoofer kit.

Buckle on your Bible belt
and hang on to your salvation
the Holy Spirit told me
you can save this whole damn nation.

Selling out is not a sin so
put those kids in angel white
paint on some smiles and
make ‘em bright

we’re going on TV tonight.
Now all those pagans will finally see
American Idol pays Jesus
royalties.

-Lo, who has to admit the whole damn show was annoying, not just the end.

Mood: Exhausted
Drinking: Water

How to Play the Game

Tell me what you want to hear.
Name the words
and I will release them to you
one by one.

I hold them hostage
only by accident.

But such an oversight proves fortuitous
on occasions like this
when the balance of power
shifts suddenly into my lap.

I watch you muddy your eyes
and plead for their lives
as if I hold them up against the killing wall,
gun barrel pressed to their cursive heads.

Negotiations commence.

I could tell you right now
that I l-o-v-e you or
pierce the heart of the matter
with a bullet
right through the “o”.

-Lo, who is not a great negotiator when she’s tired.

Mood: Sleepy
Drinking: Tea

surrender

beneath my eyelids
grate grains of sand.
I feel the ocean
every time I blink.
fog rolls us over
like a conquering army.
nothing will keep it
from folding us
in shivery silver.
not houses or hills
or rattling sabers.
who can resist
such an endless grey force.
who can stand
against such a solid chill.

-Lo, from Fog City

Mood: Late
Drinking: Done

Lover

In the waking light
I memorize the way
miniature caramel curls
write their names at the edge of his neck,

like love graffiti
on a junior high notebook.

In sleep
he looks like the boy I never knew,
a small stranger who refused to cry
when gravel stole the skin from his kneecaps,
but wrapped lanky legs around
the bald blue bicycle
and pedaled stoically away,
blood running down his shins
like a fading summer creek.

-Lo, sliding #8 in under the wire.

Mood: Hungry
Drinking: Diet Dr. Pepper

Zaftig

Fear lends you size
without strength.

You believe yourself LARGE.
Too large to fit
in a world of streamlined thighs
and scalpel highlights.

The possibilities of your proportions
are terrifying.

So you try to make yourself
chihuahua-sized,
hunching shoulders,
ducking eyes.

As if you take up too much space
that could be more successfully occupied
by someone more meaningful
someone more
small.

But even when high school waistbands
button with ease
you are not satisfied.
Mind over mirror.

You could always be thinner.

-Lo, who doesn’t believe in scales.

Mood: Snappy
Drinking: Tea

Farm Cat

No one knew why
the cat ate her own young.

She didn’t feel the question
deserved answering, but licked
her paws with the same satisfaction
she showed after any meal.

After that day
I could never stroke her
the same way, as if I knew
all attempts at domestication
would unequivocally fail.

Later that October
she went out mousing
one fine orange afternoon
and never returned.

We assumed her demise
by car or coyote
and didn’t bother
to form a search party.

Sometimes at night
I imagine I hear her
yowling.

-Lo, who really has nothing against cats but does prefer the company of a dog.

Mood: Tired
Drinking: Water

Always Greener

The dream came again last night…
aliens in ballgowns at the prom.
Only I could speak their language.

Somehow we all end up dancing in a meadow
rolling down the soft sides of green hills
hopelessly staining our chiffon skirts.

A herd of bemused cattle watch without
curiosity as the mothership touches down.
I beg for a ride to another atmosphere

but the alien queen shakes both her heads and
that’s when I wake up. Later, I’m obsessed
with what I missed – not a glimpse of otherworlds

but a real live replica of the blue dress I wore.
I scour every store with badly drawn sketches but
only find frocks that make my skin look green.

-Lo, getting lazy on the weekend.