Little Hates | Laura Davenport

Laura Davenport's poems have appeared in Best New Poets 2009, Crab Orchard Review, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, and Sow's Ear Poetry Review, among others. She is the recipient of a Hackney Literary Award, James River Writers/Richmond Magazine Best Poem award, and a Meridian Editors' Choice award. She lives in Savannah, Georgia.       Manifesto for World DominationFind a pretty girl and follow heruntil you cannot hate the worldany more. I mean no more thanother mornings, when the shopsare closed for Sunday and the men on corners loiter because they own the world.Watch their heads turn as she passes like the beaks of crows, like a cat watching those crows with a burr in its throat: escaping soundwhose message is coiled muscleunable to spring. Follow a pretty girland you will understand the world—the ways eyes glaze, glance off, collide with yours, her frame tight or loose, or short, or small, or rolling—covered or uncovered. Wait till she looks aside in shame, afraid of the bend