Ask what She Thought and She Comes to Mind
(for Devin Cohee)
By Daniel McGinn

She might hand you a blank
or shoot you some bullet
or sheet you some paper
and say please start saying something

you are not getting any younger
and leave us be
after all of the kill
and be killed
you did for a living
and the violence
you have done
to trees and families

look what you did
to the homeless
you have your Christmas
and you have your Muslims
and after all you have taken from us
you want a bail out too?

Start handling and hugging
and crying and listening to your children
Start with blank paper
Start by pressing the reverse remote button
Take back those lives
Give back our houses
Take back those bombs

Stop lying about weapons
You people over two fifty
You pimps in the lobby
You ticks on the governing body
Take back what you voted for

Don’t call this a democracy
Take back what God has given
and if you see him
ask him where he’s been

I would rather crawl
under a chair and play
than let your words
get into my soul
I listened to your poetry
and you wasted my time

I am the girl on the kitchen floor
I invest in Beanie Babies
I am out of money
I am out of my body
I am smiling in a picture
you can hold in your hand

Daniel McGinn’s work has appeared in the OC Weekly, Next … Magazine and several other anthologies and publications. He represented Los Angeles at the 1997 National Poetry Slam. He has several chapbooks as part of the Laguna Poets Series. He was one of the hosts of Tebot Bach’s reading series at Golden West College. He and his wife, poet Lori McGinn, are natives of Southern California. They have 3 children, 5 grandchildren, two parakeets, several fish, and a very good dog.