How To, page 2
lost in los angeles
running from the green-eyed lady
i got lost on the freeway in l.a.
i saw the mexican markets
i saw the train tracks
i saw the old bridge and the cement river
i saw the vast expanse of grayness
leading nowhere
i saw a dog zigzag thirsty
i thought of the woman with her eyes
like cold green glass
and her smirking smile
how she tried to eat my boyfriend and my mentor
and my house
i thought, what has happened to my city
with its roses and angels?
i thought, what has happened to my boyfriend
who was bowling with miss green eyes
just the day before?
after she ate his heart
he handed mine to her on a china plate
just like the one she used to serve him meat
in my vegetarian kitchen
and then left
so i dug in my purse for my cell phone
and i called my friends
sara and sera and maria
and they looked at maps and told me
which way to turn
and they helped guide me home
it is good to see the sadness of my city
without roses without angels except the ones
disguised as your girlfriends
it is good to get lost in her
it is even good to let envy hold your heart
in her mouth
but if you don’t give in to her my darlings
she will release you
she will spit you out
toxic blonde
you are those little craftsman houses decorated
with strings of lights and candles in paper bags
lining the path to the backyard where beautiful
lesbians live in silver airstream trailers and bonfires
burn and old dogs try to steal the macaroni and
cheese and cookies off the table you are forgotten
kings of the punk rock scene wearing circle jerks
buttons and speaking in scottish tongues and you
are hot loud-mouthed big-breasted blondes in pink
fur coats and fetishistic shoes taking photos of
everyone and making them laugh and you are
guava cream cheese pastry bakeries and movie
theaters with golden egyptian gods and the
hospital where i was born and where my dad was
treated for cancer and you are lights tumbling
down the dark hills like bits of crushed glass and
you are shoe stores called lush selling four-inch
cork-soled metal-studded round-toed suede slip-on
platforms that will certainly this time make me feel
beautiful at least for one day and you have made
me feel like shit all these years when all you loved
were your blondes with small noses and big boobs
and you have made me cry countless times because
you were synonymous with death by car crash or
melanoma and you have made me feel like a freak
writing poetry in a land of actresses though now
i’ve found your poets and they invite me to their
gatherings and ask me to sign old copies of my
books and if i had been in new york i would have
been one of a million neurotic jewish women
writers i would have not learned to forgive myself
in a room full of girls with perfect tans i would
have not learned to walk on such high heels i would
not have found my ex-husband and therefore my
children who can’t be mad at you because they
know nothing else i would not dance outside under
the almost invisible stars i would not be thinking
so much about plastic surgery i would not have
burned my skin to blisters in your sun i would not
have been able to write forty-five poems in as many
days and i would not have been able to say i have
been able to write them because of this fertile
flowery toxic blonde that is how
media queenz
we liked winona because she seemed intelligent
and sensitive
with good taste in men
and a bit of a goth sensibility
julia annoyed us we didn’t trust her voracious smile
natalie too perfect slightly cold
nicole, salma and gwyneth breaking our trust
when they donned fake noses and eyebrows
boned up on their suffering
to play our saints
though we loved angelina
in spite of the fact that of all of them
she had the most potential
to destroy a woman’s life
it was not the careers so much we envied
not the rich and famous men
(except perhaps for johnny
who tattooed her name but left anyway
to marry a french model)
it was not the chance to portray all kinds of women
on a giant screen
it was the doe eyes the big lips the skin
fine grained as porcelain
it was the dresses shoes the grace
the way our men said, “i used to want a movie star”
turned away from us in the drugstore
to stare at magazine covers
even while we were buying condoms
even while we were bleeding
where were our pradas? our pouts?
our captivating glances?
only later we would grow up
and realize that these women were just women
they ran from the altar they stole
someone else’s man
they shoplifted they got loaded they tattooed
the wrong name on their bodies
then we could be grateful
we are pretty enough stylish enough
we are unscrutinized
we are loved
duty: for sofia
she was a princess of the holy wood
her parents brought her to a jungle
when she was little to sit
at the feet of a prophetic madman
when she was older she performed on the stage
the crowd put her in the stocks and threw vegetables
at her da vinci face
her brother the prince drowned in the sea
she married
a man everyone called genius it seemed like paradise
she wept
alone in her villa while he flirted with actresses
she made
art won acclaim and her husband’s jealousy he left
she wore
only short black or white dresses
some full some slim and elegant black flats
was named best dressed on every list smiled quietly
and like a cat
told a story about marie crowned queen at nineteen
dressed in magical shoes
showered with jewels and cake not loved properly lost in a castle
of gilt dreaming
of the natural world making babies finally beheaded
but this princess keeps dreaming her next dream
she has a lot of stories still to tell
she knows that in times of danger it is up to the girls
to overcome humiliation and grief even decapitation
and save us
vampire in the city of lost
once there were these two girls
who were really bored
and they put on their shortest skirts
and highest heels
the ones that made their toes bleed
and they applied perfume to all their pulse points
and they went out into the shiny city
where they met this tall vampire with a shaved head
and a body tattooed with the stories of the centuries
and the face of a matinee idol
please please drink our blood they begged
tossing their hair away from their long swan necks
please make us into the immortal dead
and the vampire said
oh no oh no you silly girls
that is not really what you want
it might look fun but actually it kind of sucks
but we are bored, said the girls
we want to wear the fashions of the future
we want to have countless lovers
and most of all we want to stay young and beautiful
forever
but the vampire gave the girls a lecture
about global warming
and the unfathomable hours of the walking dead
if you think you’re bored now! he said
he bought them kir royales and kissed them chastely
on the lips
so that their mouths went numb and tingly
for a moment
and then he left
the girls hobbled home on their bleeding feet
and they thought about that handsome vampire
sitting up in a tree
watching the deserts flame around him
or sailing on a melting ice floe
while the polar bears died
and the girls were glad to be alive
and they were glad they would eventually die
and after that they always turned off
all the lightbulbs in the house
when they went to bed
hoping they were helping the planet
and, secretly cloaked in darkness,
that the vampire would come back
l.a. bacchantes
yxta and francesca decided to start a clique
for frail but surprisingly strong fairies who had lost
their way above ground
for burned mermaids and sick vampire girls
for wild wolfish women with sharp teeth and leaves
in their hair
for women who had been raped
and women who had never been touched
for women who had been devoured limbs eaten
and women who had sucked the blood
of their passive mates
for ladies who had at one time or another considered
themselves hideous monsters
and who had at other times blinded their lovers
with goddess glory
for smart hungry sad creatures who disguised
themselves as women
and wept in secret because they did not look
like supermodels
for loud lascivious funny femmes fatales
who wanted to eat flowers and whipped cream
and dance on the tables
smash things and wear pieces of the chandelier
for jewelry
fuck satyrs and lick dark chocolate off
each other’s bodies
be worshipped online and flirted with
at parties and glimpsed
in the pages of vanity fair in an article entitled
“l.a. bacchantes”
but mostly just needed each other
yxta and francesca had always desired world peace
and profound romance
but this clique wish seemed somewhat selfish maybe
superficial and greedy
they did not yet know how significant it was
no different really from the peace and love
they had been born wanting
and perhaps would change not only themselves but
the world
people’s park (escape to the north)
stay away, they warned her
she watched from a distance as those others
crossed the threshold
a giant swaddled as a mummy
a dreadlocked satyr mumbling
curses to the blossoming trees and garbage
a fortune-teller who sheltered
a whole family of fairies
under her skirt
a witch with a young woman’s body
and the face of dried apple
rice grain teeth like the dolls the girl used to make
with her mother
some days she yearned to leave the icy marble halls
where no one knew her name
and join them
leave the plates of greasy food
that congealed their fats at her abdomen
leave the cruelly beautiful blond boys and girls
in their polo shirts and top-siders
drinking kegs and fucking and ripping
fancy paper off the walls
of their grecian mansions
it would be better to sleep in mud
eat roots and flowers
discarded crusts and the coffee
the vendors left out for her
after all, who had that giant been before?
lurching down the street as if his feet
were burned stumps
he reminded her of the injured dragon
in the dream last night
afraid until she gave him water and kissed his lips
that did not scald her
she bargained with them i will stop eating i will
sleep in the dirt
sleep out all night on the cold marble steps
i will write poetry about you revealing
your true selves
but they would not let her in
she returned to a city they never even dreamed of
where the homeless lived in cardboard shacks
and had forgotten they were ever
something else
like pretty
what would it be like if i thought i was pretty
what would it be like if i carried
that knowledge around
like i do the knowledge that i am a writer
pretty like peonies pretty like satin pretty
like the child i was
would i speak to you differently
would i be healthier less stressed
less worried
would i buy more shoes or fewer
would i be more or less afraid
of death would i find something else
to hate about myself
would i get this jealous
when your eyes aren’t touching me
in this city of movie star beauties
would i be able to write such raw
and seductive words
would you have fallen in love with me sooner
would i have frightened you away
before you had the chance?
my love
my love is undisciplined
unruly
tangled
she is always hungry
my love wants sweet and savory
baklava and stuffed grape leaves
mango smoothies and avocado sushi
carrot cake and butternut soup
my love does contact dance with strangers
and sweats between her legs
she discusses auschwitz with men in galleries
and thinks she was once anne frank
my love is clairvoyant
she can read past lives the way she reads books—
haphazard, invasive and devouring
my love sometimes wishes she were a lesbian
but she is unrelentingly heterosexual
my love loves babies
pink cake boxes
penises
sheer sequin covered tunics
shoes
(currently she is on a dogged internet search
for pink satin platforms)
my love’s nickname is l.a.
she is extravagant
guileless
with no knowledge of spells or witchcraft
if my love had her own body
she would look more like angelina jolie
than like me
i can’t blame her for feeling cheated
by the body she’s stuck in
my love wants to change the world
she thinks she has so much to give
not realizing how much she takes from others
my love is loyal until she senses rejection of any kind
then she flies like a bird but has less memory
of where she came from
i would like to protect you from my love
she is the creator and the destroyer
she wants so much from you
she would kneel at your feet
and clutch at your heart
that’s the way she does things
but i am her slave
no longer
i will witness
the way you tilt your head
undulate your shoulders
fling me onto your back
cradle me
hold me upside down
whisper love lyrics into my ear
carry my pink purse not recall it all
run away
call me anorexic
tell me your ex-girlfriend was the love of your life
that you will never love anyone that way again
and my love and i will simply watch and wait
until we discover
who you really are
PART 3
love poems for girls
for the girls
i searched for him in the dancer dark
