Tresha Faye Haefner’s work appears in various journals and magazines, including BloodLotus, Melusine, Pirene’s Fountain, Poet Lore, and Rattle.
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I Will Arise Now and Go to Los Angeles
After William Butler Yeats
I will arise now and go to Los Angeles
where the lip gloss is leopard print
and the eyes of women shine like jewels waiting
to be excavated from an urban jungle.
I will arise now and go to Los Angeles
where they sit on towels that have hundred dollar bills printed across the terrycloth,
and dream about coconut water and hours of easy money
they can make in their sleep.
I will arise now and go to Los Angeles
where everyone spends their Saturdays driving 40 miles an hour
around the cliffs of the Palisades,
where the windows are always open and the sun lands soft as a smile
on their tan legs and two dollar bottles of coke.
I will arise now and go to Los Angeles
where everyone walks in the surf on Venice beach
and watches the water skiers ski, and prays for a sign of dolphins,
or listens to Raga music, and eats organic pumpkin seed muffins
while someone burns incense in the breeze.
I will arise now and go to Los Angeles
where everyone can read poetry at an open mic,
or see live comedy for five dollars a ticket,
or run into a minor celebrity buying day old croissants at Starbucks
and pretend to be cool for not asking for an autograph.
I will arise now and go to Los Angeles,
where four a.m. wake up calls and want ads and asphalt
pull everyone from their beds like music.
I will arise now and go to Los Angeles
where even the homeless
are the blessed of the earth, soaking up rays of the sun, and spending their days
juggling rainbow colored hackey sacs for cash.
I will arise now and go to Los Angeles
where everyone can go to a party on a rooftop of lights
and meet a stranger with red hair, who says she’s an actress
with rose petals crushed into her pocket,
or talk to a boy who pays rent by playing songs
on his sad red American guitar,
or stop on their way home to stand outside of Mann’s Chinese Theater,
and put their feet where the stars have stood,
and watch the Magnolia blossoms open and fall like spotlights
someone is casting down for them alone.
