Past Lives

Danielle was fired from  the magazine
because it was discovered that she had listed qualifications
from her past lives on her resume
She was afraid she would be forced to wile away her days
sitting in cafes drinking milky latte
while pale made up strangers gaped at her
fishmouthed, for using a pen on paper
instead of a MacBook Pro*

She didn’t think it exaggerating
to profess exceptional leadership skills
with the life of famous Australian democrat
under her belt; she weathered a scandal
greater than the Pacific Ocean
that she had to travel over to seek social asylum
as the wagging tongues that lapped at photographs
abandoned policy
she lived out her days without
her annexed manhood

Her charisma, she confessed,  was distilled
 in the seventies
a time when truth was given birth to blurred
by the cigarette smoke, the propaganda
and guitar distortion
Iggy Pop once serenaded her in the parking lot
of Pandora’s Box on the Sunset Strip
 in a voice like a storm brewing
in a teacup
“Danielle, my belle, you have a butt that wont quit
and your sex is hypnotic”
He asked her home with him, but instead
she stole his cigarettes and ran to the ocean
and dropped them in, one by one
by one
twenty little tobacco boats
floating out to sea

And they could not say that she 

was without style
for she was once a great favourite of Marie Antoinette
She knew more about that Queen of France 

than anyone, that cake was out of the question
Danielle  didn’t tell people this; she was afraid they wouldn’t trust her
with their money
she did have a weakness for silk lace and pastry
which she thought might have given her away

As she cleared her desk out
Danielle wished that she had once been a dictator
Russian Invasion, Spanish Armada,
German Genocide
then perhaps she could have survived
the fashion industry
no, more than that
she could have commanded it
with her own army of spider legged women
all sporting perpetual scowls
and the power to cut a women’s self esteem in half
with the slice of her fingernail across
a bolt of lightning coloured fabric

She took comfort in the thought
of a thousand cowering editors
clutching mugs of latte underneath their desks,
as she left her badge at the reception 

*I wrote while sitting in a cafe, where I could count at least ten Mac Books just at a glance. As I pulled out my pen and paper from my backpack and started scribbling away, a girl looked at me as though I had pulled out a stone tablet and started making cave paintings!! It was rather amusing.