Yellow Light Fighter
orange peel chewer,
cookie dough consumer,
nightmare slayer: you
will not be ambushed
by laugh track laughter
last-page-readers,
fingernail clippers.
push on, Yellow Light
Fighter, on through
the intersection glazed
with grass and glass
shards. you eye-roller,
Coke drinker, multiple lover,
radio warrior, your battle
against the sunlight
is relentless. slow not.
brake not: at night,
the lights flash gold
for their queen, the
weightlifter, know maker,
pencil crusher.
carry on, Yellow Light
Fighter. the road
will echo your laugh.
Flamingo God
Every day Cassie dresses up
in a new animal costume
and she has been them all –
polar bears, alligators,
ostriches, baboons,
yellow-eyed owls
She made them all
in celebration, innocent worship.
On this particular day,
Cassie dons a flamingo costume
and she travels to the zoo with
her father and brother. “Cassie,”
her brother says, as they get into the car,
“I really like that turquoise shirt
dad got for you the other day.”
“Yeah,” she says.
“Wouldn’t this be a good day to wear it?”
“No, I want to wear my flamingo costume
and talk to the flamingos.”
She’s in the 3rd grade
but all they do is sigh.
Eventually they arrive at the zoo.
What, you ask,
do the flamingos
tell our pink-feathered protagonist?
“THE CREATOR IS COMING,” the lanky birds chant.
“FEW SHALL BE SPARED.”
“What do I need to do?” Cassie asks, wide-eyed.
“THE CREATOR IS COMING,” the flamingos chant.
“How do I save my family?” she persists.
“THE CREATOR IS COMING,” they squawk, again,
relentless.
‘BRING YOUR HUMANS
TO OUR LAIR
AS TRIBUTE.”
Soon enough,
pink feathers begin to fall
inexplicably
from the sky.
The zoo is evacuated. Human bodies
are vulnerable with no feather-suits.
Miraculously,
Cassie and her family remain safe
in the throes of giant pink bird-flesh,
all huddled together.
“I can’t believe this is how
I’m spending my Saturday,” moans Cassie’s brother.
As soon as they hear
a giant,
booming
squawk,
follow by a cacophony of human shrill –
they remain still.
They wait the pink storm out,
and it passes,
the feathers settle to the earth.
Cassies’s father
is the first to emerge.
“Never thought God would be a flamingo.”
Elliott Rodger’s Retribution
is what he named it, like a tragic modern opera.
He sang his part and enunciated every word like
“slut” and “slaughter” and “slay” and earlier,
that morning, he’d done his makeup. Brushed his hair.
Washed his face. Prepared himself for the camera.
All eyes on the killer – after the filming, he knew
we would flock to him like never before. Yes,
he thought, then they will see how beautiful I am.
(Father, he cried. Father.)
He handed her gold, and when she refused,
he cracked, morphed, writhed, like a crushed insect.
No face is more twisted than one tasting blood.
He saw her split forehead before he’d even
bought the gun. In fact, it was about the time
he started having such exhilarating fantasies –
women salivating over his genitals –
women dead – that he opened up his laptop
and saw there were others like him.
(Father. Daddy. Come play with me!)
Elliot Rodger watched the men on television,
for whom pretty blonde women are prize,
and pruned his feathers in preparation.
No one told him that God is not human.
Instead, they told him: You deserve it.
-Kaitlin Bonfiglio
Kaitlin is a senior at the University of Michigan majoring in English and International Studies. She is currently living in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Photo courtesy Bella I.
Gaia 