"Having Been Turned Down (The World's Leaders Don't Want to Come to Dinner)" [by Laura Cronk]

Having Been Turned Down
(The World's Leaders Don't Want To Come To Dinner)

It's true that I used to be in a much worse mood.  It's true that the lighting has improved.
Here's to that.

Star-lit parties are mine to throw. They're mine, no matter who's coming. I have
my own ruling class, my own personal celebrity.

I've tried the other way.  But wearing a kerchief wasn't doing any good. Taking recipes
from the people for chicken with cream of chicken soup -

I don't want to make that kind of thing. I don't want to address it.

Better to stop the war by doing my hair. Coaxing out amazing lift, peaceful waves,
light-catching waft.

Going to the War Resisters' League tonight wouldn't have done any good, anyway. 
Their protest song calendar didn't get one arrow through he armored beast. Lest we
forget, the thing is covered in armor, and is a beast.

Instead, we'll have roast tarragon chicken and the freshest best asparagus and pastes
on toasts. I'm dreaming. There is no We.

Just They. I see them all in a flash out commiserating in the yard in the dark. The troops
I call them when they betray me like this. You tell the troops to do things and when
they do them, you punish them.

But not now. Now is the time for dinner. I pull the dead chicken out of the plastic.

The chicken's been through hell and back. Or better put, though it was living,
it's not organic.

Out of timelessness and into this.

Not Defeatist. More Artist.

Not Leftist. More Painless. More hidden, more lawless. By that I mean
I have no law degree. I'm a woman cooking.  Not hopeless. Well, now that I look at it. 

– Laura Cronk

Originally published in Lyric.

Comments

[Sharon Mesmer]

Laura, that poem rocks!!!