Ellen Caswell is currently in her last year as a PhD candidate in the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee's Creative Writing Program in poetry. Her poems have recently appeared in Blue Mesa Review and High Plains Literary Review. She recieved her MFA from the University of Arizona.
IMPERATIVE
Whatever it is you’re doing, stop.
Stop wishing for guns and fangs,
disco lights or glitter glam.
The boys are onto you.
Wishing for destruction doesn’t make it happen
any more than cows listening to rain
and flicking it off with a twitch of ear
sweetens the milk.
You’ll never find someone to throw things at.
Forget about target practice on a ranch chained
to the Sonoras.
Mountains keep rubbing up against
the sex crimes in your dreams.
Don’t worry, though.
Tell yourself, “Me and order, we’re like this.”