SCAPEGOAT TWIGGY
Waif skin
and fat lashes.
Your space-age smile
made us all
healthy
star-
vers.
OPTIMISM
Is a theory proposed by stomachs.
As a girl,
she invades my mother's house.
Eats our frozen chicken.
When she's full, she starts to hurt-
like this situation's too optimistic.
It's bound to go wrong.
I sigh out flowers on the deck.
The petals rip one by one-
the girl lives-the girl dies-the girl lives,
I hope.
In Ham Lake, helicopters
have been circling for a week.
In the woods, they swoop in low.
I sit with my mother on the deck.
She claims a dealer is loose,
another meth-lab discovered.
In front of tomorrow's headlines,
I tell her helicopters can't be
that bad.
My stomach's empty.
Glenna Myles © 2006.
Glenna Myles currently lives and writes in Los Angeles, CA.