Myrna Loy’s Early Films
by Kenneth Pobo

They made her exotic,
meaning non-white, “Oriental,”
a woman who easily ruins men
just because she can. Why

was this exotic? When I think
of corporations ruining men,
no one calls them exotic—
they’re job creators
though the jobs went poof.

Loy’s victims? Who were they,
Little Nell? Dimwits
who blame everyone but
themselves? Maybe they’re
the exotics, hothouse flowers
that withere outside of
the greenhouse. Or
they trap women and ooze
bile when they fight back.

By the mid-30s, Loy would be
urbane and martini’d, shedding
her exotic but still erotic look—

foreclosures rose while
bankers put a whole country
in a picnic basket
and had us for dinner.

Myrna Loy’s Early Films – Kenneth Pobo

Kenneth Pobo won the 2011 Qarrtsiluni poetry chapbook contest for Ice And Gaywings. They published it in November 2011. Also published in 2011 was Tiny Torn Maps, a collection of microfiction, from Deadly Chaps. He teaches creative writing and English at Widener University.