Dianna L. Zimmerman--A Brando Poem, sort of

Dianna L. ZIMMERMAN is a creative writing graduate student at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque. She works as an on-line mentor/editor for other writers through the University of New Mexico community outreach program, The Writers' Inn, and is the happy mother of a twin girl and boy!

A BRANDO POEM (sort of)

I'm short, the kind of short you have to look down to see but aren't afraid of. I like to watch spaghetti westerns in a brown suede cowboy hat and sit on my sagging plaid couch and dream of forty-year-old Marlon Brando in black-and-white still shots. I work in the back of a one-room hot dog stand. I stand over the grill and watch the curls of steam rise and disappear as I roll the dogs around on the 425 degree shiny metal grill. I clean the grill with a black handled, straight-edged heavy spatula. I prefer pepperoni and cheese pizza with thick crust and looking at the way people sit on the park benches across from my stand. You can tell certain things about their personality by the way they cross their legs. I daydream all day about the old west and the quivering horse flank muscles as they race across the desert in the noontime heat. Or the plain - pounding hooves across beaten grasses and around midget trees that only grow on movie sets. I love pigeons and the way they crane their necks. They move to a rhythm that's a cross between hip hop and country western. I see things in people when they're hungry you don't normally get to see: wanting. I agree with everything political I hear. It's good for business. I have one other thing to tell you: this is all a lie.

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