Ice Queen

Our new neighbor’s bumper sticker says PORN STAR
She moved her thousand things into the one room
studio apartment, leaving trash and boxes of unprized
stuff in the walkway in the rain for us all
to admire. When she knocks on our door,
I open, and there she is in a clean white Eskimo
coat, the white imitation fur cradling her cranium,
her face a pinch of smiling self-assurance, a
bleached raisin that says, “Can I use your phone?”
I say, “Not right now, sorry,” and the smile
that fades tells me this: she really thinks the
world of herself, has not expected a man to
refuse her so simple a thing as using his phone,
especially since she’s put on her Eskimo coat
and has smiled. Poor girl, thinks all men want is
her bundt cake baked firm and steaming round
their frosting applicators drizzling fat pearly
glaze made of beaten butter and powdered
sugar-milk mixture. How sad when I close the
door. The next time she knocks, no Eskimo coat
on her, no smile on her either. “Can I use your
phone?” she says drably, and I say, “We don’t have
a phone,” and she turns away as if she knew
the answer ahead of time, before the knock,
how fast she learns, but what she wants,
I can tell, is a bunch of crystal meth to
set her back in the mood, take her away from
the awful depression, give her back her confidence
and the cunt that aches for spontaneous
combustion, a fast fuck between the sweet white
tides and thoughts of suicide.

- John Oliver Hodges

(added 01.25.09)

You Can’t See Yourself

You are so naïve you
only think about
yourself she
says

Nobody in this world
would ever put up with
what I put up with
she says

You can’t see
yourself she
says

You make me
sick she
says

Then she goes
behind the refrigerator
where her chair is
and sits, her large
white feet propped
against the wall
and reads

These are the books she
is reading now:
Big Small Plates
All About Jewelry
Costume Jewelry
Sushi
Grub

Then there are the
magazines:
In Style
Lucky
Elle

She reads
and then she reads
and between reading
the books and slick
magazines on
miso-baked beef in
lettuce cups and summer
survival tactics for
ladies she rages

You don’t understand
anything she
says

And eventually she
cries, screams
for the neighbors
to hear, hits me
with her small
white hands
and
eats a plate
of the wild
rice I
cooked with
cauliflower
sauce

- John Oliver Hodges

(featured in the poetry forum 01.25.09)

She Couldn’t Have Been Five Feet Tall

I like waking up at three
xxxin the morning to the sound
xxxxxxof people outside the apartment
xxxxxxsaying things
xxxxxxusually nasty things.
xxxxxxOnce, back in Florida
xxxxxxI heard a woman’s voice rise
xxxxxxup out of the night with:
I DON’T SMOKE CRACK YOU BLACK NIGGER MOTHERFUCKER!
xxxxxxThat’s one of my all-time faves.
xxxxxxHere in Alaska, where I now live
xxxxxxguys will sit out on the steps
xxxxxxat three in the morning and whisper. Once,
xxxxxxI heard a guy say to another guy:
Are they having a ménage à trois?
xxxxxxBut my favorite Alaska wake
xxxxxxup to somebody saying something
xxxxxxnasty moment came from a short
xxxxxxfat Eskimo woman. In a slow drunk
xxxxxxperfectly articulated voice she said:
WHO THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU ARE!
xxxxxxIt was beautiful, and I stood up and
xxxxxxput my face to the glass in order to see
xxxxxxthis wonder as slow step by slow step
xxxxxxshe ascended the stairs to the street.
xxxxxxShe couldn’t have been 5 feet tall.

- John Oliver Hodges

(added 01.25.09)