Three Poems – Jessica Lohafer

The Cover of Rolling Stone Magazine 

The photographer knows. Calls your name and number, pulls
your star from his private smog sea. Wants you to get quick,
give gullible. The photographer is shout-singing suggestions
from behind his Magna Carta camera lens:

Try tricksy! There you go, pretend you don’t know! Pretend
you don’t want what you know! Give me infidelity! Plump 
your lips! Give me click click click! Like you’re the purveyor
rule breaker, and there are Hail Marys for sale! 

He seizures Seltzer water, is scream-stamp-skipping 
towards an assistant named Tonya, oh, Tonya, 
tragic greenscreen orphanet, an individualist 
who thought she was better than this. 

But isn’t Hollywood just a different kind 
of housebreaking? All of its precious pets
reigned into the same ring, panting, panting,
	waiting for their cue. 



An Individualist who Thinks She is Better Than This

is surprised to see her body on display at Macy’s.
Served up like cuts of meat, That’s where my thighs went! 
She’s reaching down to double check, but her right
hand’s gone, perched proudly with a purse in Junior’s.

Her left tit bobs like an apple in a tree, high above 
Intimates, spinning in fluorescent light and string.
Her agent comes at her, all cell phone cardiac, all racetrack,
making bids like latchkey kids and their Television babysitter:

Buy buy buy! What an opportunity, what a deep fried kind 
of olive branch! This is better than the dove better than the piece-
meal deal they were stringing us along with, this is all of Kansas 
on a plate, neon supper squeal and singing. 

Think about the exposure!
Agent bulldozes towards their book deal
and Individualist counts what remains:
	seven fingers. Six baby toes. 



How to Win a Pageant in Five Easy Steps: 
Advice for Young Hopefuls 

1.) Think big. No, big. Like cosmic big, like tsunami big. Like your smile 
should be wiping out the livelihood of some small time farmer, or 
something. It isn’t insensitive, they would have survived if they 
had your kind of stage presence.

2.) Give them sweet like a headache. Like sledgehammer hips. Like 
watermelon bubble gum caught in their windpipe, the hot pink 
sprinkles of their death wish; don’t think they don’t know 
exactly what you do to them.

3.) Practice your surprised face. Practice your humble acceptance speech 
face. Practice your, I swear I didn’t sucker punch my opponent right 
straight in her vagina because she threw off my energy when I was 
warming up for the group dance routine, face.

4.) Never thank your mama before you thank God. Never mix up your 
daddy for God, or you’ll be praying to the boy who’s sleeping off 
his hangover in the stands, sipping on a wine cooler and promising 
he’ll bring the car around in just a minute. 

5.) When you get that trophy, hold it like a hand job. Like the last drag 
of your cigarette, how its cherry sparks at your hairspray hemorrhage. 
You’ll be real pretty when they’re proud of you.