LaDonnaWitmer

Mood: Sweet
Drinking: Fountain soda

Pest Control

A flash of brown fur on white floor
as I open the door. Glossy bulbous eyes
meet mine for an instant, then he’s off,
four clawed feet scrabbling against
resistant polished tile, worm tail lashing
the filtered air for speed. A strange garbled
“Gaaaah!” escapes my throat, much to
my embarrassment, for I have farm girl
in my blood and know better than to
be terrorized by furred rodents. But
we have surprised each other
and now stand apart, I poised
near the door, he behind the toilet,
and try to slow our pounding animal hearts.
I consider our options, for we will not
remain alone in this room forever. If I call for help,

men will come bringing death and rescue.
But I am not a natural screamer.
Overcome by irrational Disney compassion
(for Cinderella made those mice such cute little shirts)
I bend to meet the intruder’s shiny stare.
Small chest pounding, he blurs again into motion,
leaving the porcelain for a better refuge.
In the next stall, a large cardboard box
storing plastic-wrapped tampons sits open-lidded.
He leaps gracefully up and lands softly
on sanitary cushions. I rush forward with no regard
for caution or cleanliness
and flip closed cardboard panels.
For a moment he beats fingered paws
against the sudden darkness, then falls still.
It takes nearly two minutes to thread my way
through cubicles, calmly, as if I carry large
boxes of ladies’ necessities with me always.
Outside in the alley I tip him softly into tall weeds.
He does not pause to thank me or consider
his sudden turn of good fortune, but blinks in
the sunlight and disappears. I carry the box
back to the office, finally recognizing my own
foolishness. I am the rat saviour.

Poem #4 for National Poetry Month. True story.

-Lo, who has always had an irrational rodent savior complex.

Mood: Making It Work
Drinking: Diet Coke

Peter Pan

We become adults unexpectedly.
Not when we think we will, and never when
we wish we were. It happens overnight.
You wake to discover a stranger
living behind your eyes.

Wisdom brings with it a weight,
pulls your head down from the clouds
and marries your feet to solid earth
with newfound gravitas.
You no longer chase your shadow.

Age has nothing to do with it.
When a mortar shreds your family
along with your living room
you become an adult on your 10th birthday.

You can remain a child
well into your fourth decade
with your big screen TV and expensive
vehicular toys. But one day the call comes.
You rush to the hospital on the red-eye
barely understanding all the papers you sign
all the plugs that you pull. You wash
your hands with anti-bacterial soap
in the yellow ICU bathroom and
recognize that your childhood ended
somewhere over Albuquerque.

You can grow up in rehab
faster than you sober up
when you take the first step toward serenity
face the mess you made
and make the admission.

Or, when the smallest hand
you’ve ever seen
clutches your index finger
in utter dependence
you can astonish yourself
with your own newborn maturity
and realize your time is up
in neverland.

-Lo, who thinks three’s a charm.

Mood: Achey
Drinking: Water

Getting Lucky

At 2:07 a.m. on the 27th
2 men are shot dead
7 blocks from my house.

As it so happens, 2 and 7
are my lucky numbers.

But this is more about
logistics than luck.

At 2:07 a.m. on the 27th
I slept on memory foam
and dreamt of an alibi.

As it turns out, luck has
everything to do with staying alive.

Luck and the lack
of a social life.

-Lo, with 2 down and 28 to go.

Mood: Ambidextrous
Drinking: Something pinkish

In a fit of ambition and optimism, I’ve decided to do something terribly foolish.

See, in some circles, April is celebrated as National Poetry Month. So I’m using that as an excuse to lose my head. For the next 30 days, starting today, I’m going to write a poem. Every day. That’s 30 poems. In 30 days.

It’s really very insane.

Sometimes I don’t even write 30 poems in one year. But I feel the need to give myself an occasion to rise to, so there you have it.

They certainly won’t all be good poems, and some of them will be quite hastily written. ‘Cuz I’m not going to post a poem that I wrote last year or even last month, no, no. These will all be fresh from the oven.

So for the next 30 days, you can check this space every day and there will be something new, something fresh, something hopefully not too awful-tasting for your poetry palette. Oh, the excitment. Can you feel it?

The thought of this venture inspired the first of my 30 attempts, because I kept hearing Mr. T say that he pitied the fool. Mr. T is a very wise man…

Process

pity the fool
with pen in hand
laboring over a poem.

pity the pen
so mangled and worn
scrabbling in vain at the page.

pity the page
soaked clear through
with the ink of unfit words.

pity the words
all desperate to please
tripping over themselves into line.

pity the line
jostled into formation
awaiting the touch of the muse.

and pity the muse
standing just out of sight
presiding over her fool.

yes, pity the fool with the pen in hand,
for there is no greater labor of love
and no bigger frustration.

-Lo, who, truth be told, is rather daunted by the task.