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In part, our cellar is a well.When the ground swells, pregnant with ocean brineand rain, the water rises: murky and dustclotted,filtered through groundfloor pores. In part, I remembermy mother downstairs in the slow, slow, steady tide, I remember herwildness, brave and rockjawed in the face of her house, her house’sbetrayal.Continue Reading

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My mother worries onebone in her body like the windwarps a grain field. It is the glowingmetal rod in her left shin — the poetry dowsing rod. At night she sleeps stilland the rod points up to her blood-pumping heart, twice out, years longto work, still — and glows blueContinue Reading

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She struggles to breathe in the icy air,gulping trouble and guile from voicesnot her own. She has learned to skate betweendazzlers and blunderers on the gridlockedcity rink, ankles burning with intent andtentative discovery of the sweetspot for equipoise, remaining mostly upright,steering into a valiant glide, knowinga fall is imminent, inescapablewhenContinue Reading

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I can buy two comics for a quarterat the druggist near the department storenext to the restaurant where we eat outalmost every Friday night. ’66it is, and I’m just ten; my allowanceis twenty-five cents a week. I blow iton superheroes. I’m a good student,bring home A’s and B’s, and amContinue Reading

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This day limps and whimpersin a sudden mob of jeers and taunts.Remorse muscles in, blockingthe tease of possible lightwith a fuggy pulse of wayward,gravel-blind, monstrous self-absorption. This is the end of the worldand only imps and devils are afoot,the wrecks beset by iron-hearted lootersstealing movement from the air, invitinga tepidContinue Reading

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I stretch for the comic book at the topof the spinner rack but I can’t reach it–I’m too small and my heroes are too high.I don’t think about what that means then but,forty-three years later, it all makes senseand would make a good comic book, too, ifI could pencil andContinue Reading

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There’s a story in this, girls,and it doesn’t have any wolves in it for now, though you never knowwhat might come down the lane, in Neverland, especially nearthat mermaid bog of old. Which is the gateway toThemyscira, truth be told, though no one ever seemsto want to know where theContinue Reading

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THE GOLDEN BUREAUCRAT, to this day, has saved 1,423 lives. What is the count for other heroes? We do not know. But we know how many deaths they have caused.Black Widow: 48Hulk: 65Batman: 75Wolverine: 101Thor: 393Captain America: 14,098Superman: UncountableBut THE GOLDEN BUREAUCRAT is an inverted hero. His secret identity doesContinue Reading

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I have to admit to myself and therefore also to you: I am a baby inside. I work in an office. I have no illusions. But after punching out, after uncinching that tie, after sliding those slacks down the length of my regrettably adult-length shaven legs, I am nothing, ifContinue Reading

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Queen Cobra leaped out the window on the 39th floor of the Derossett Building. It wasn’t the tallest high-rise in Ark City but the fall would still kill her just the same. She snagged the line she had rappelled down earlier and moved deftly up it towards the roof. SheContinue Reading