Not Like in Diagrams

Don't share this with the rest of the class—
I woke up five minutes before my alarm,
envisioned the uterus—not like in books,
not like in diagrams with the ovaries raised
like victorious, celebrating arms, but how
it really is: tucked and balled in the guts,
like a scared child hiding in a closet.
Then a cat started chewing on my hair.

She doesn’t normally sleep with us, but
an X-ray showed a moth-eaten jaw—
bone infection or cancer, too much
for her little body to say for sure.
So we give her a strong antibiotic
while she fights us, then invite her
into the bedroom like a Make-A-Wish kid.

We lavish more on her because she might
be dying. Maybe that’s all any of us are—
curled into tight balls, denying ourselves
what we want until we’re lined up on death row,
finally requesting the last meal
we’ve been craving
most of our lives.

Masculinity in 1980 Film

In Superman II, with Christopher Reeve—
you know, the one where Lois Lane
finally figures out Clark Kent is Superman
and he takes her to his Fortress of Solitude,
where they fuck in the largest metallic
beanbag chair ever committed to film—but first,
he gives up his powers,
partly so he won’t split her in half,
partly because she’s already made it clear
no woman is meant to love a man in halves.

The second he becomes ordinary,
he gets his face beaten in at an Alaskan diner
while General Zod walks into the White House
like management.
The world immediately goes to hell
because one guy wanted, for once,
to come as himself.
That’s the plot.

So of course he gets the powers back.
Of course he saves the country.
Of course he flies the flag back to the President
like the empire’s house pet.
And of course he wipes Lois Lane clean—
memory, consequence, evidence, all of it.
That’s the ending. That’s the lesson.

Never let them see you powerless.
Not for love, not for sex, not for honesty,
not even for a night.
The second you stop being invincible,
your face gets smashed in,
the country panics,
and the woman has to be punished
for having known you at all.