"Who Honestly Cares About the Next American Idol Winner?"

poem from PLAY (Book 3 of 5 in forthcoming hardbound edition, DRIVE: The First Quartet, Wings Press)

Who Honestly Cares About the Next
American Idol Winner?


She was searching
for the key of F.
Funk fables furring
her head, the perfect
make-up fading under red.
She was trying to make it.
hit the big, beat 'em up down
instead of getting beat up.
Her mother in the corner
throwing the first blows,
fixing the wrist she
shatters into slivers,
drips to a heart of lip
service: Fat. She was striving
for a dream that was already
broken, off the cuff,
in the rough, and off the key
of Freedom.



c 2005 Lorna Dee Cervantes