ELSEWEIRD
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W.W.F.
The biggest struggles don't come in tights.
It's not like it is on TV, facing the Hulk
Hogans of the world, the Undertakers,
the Rowdy Pipers. It's not Spider-Man
crossing Crusher; Banner, the Abomination.
Not even Clark Kent and Cassius Clay, alien
versus Ali under some synthetic red sun. No,
nor the Claw or Bone Saw, the Giant, Rock, Stone
Cold, all those long locked brothers. We do know
the ring, the crowd sound. Can count, on the ropes,
the exact number of enemies at our backs.
But when that hand reaches in from outside,
slaps our sleeve to let us know we're not alone,
when the melee ensues, bodies piling up
until we can't distinguish friend from fiend,
foe from phony, when the referee goes down
and the chairs begin to fly, tables upended,
all pretensions dropped, lines forgotten, fake
physics made suddenly very real, even then,
each dream teaming of masks (Sandman
vs. Slaughter; The Body, The Spirit) breaks down.
Say, for example, you love two women. One,
a writer. The other, all your friends claim, alive.
The former, her parents called Lois Lane long before
she came to this state, learned the lingo, turned
toward the planet you share for worship. You fell
first for her stories, for the luster of each lush
word, glottal glory, resolved backstory, her perfect
agreement, but you've been with her long enough
now to know better. Nights out with the uptown
crew, nights in with computer, reams, dreams,
a dozen dirtied wine stems. Small piles of skin
picked from her ear till it bleeds, the tub she keeps
falling into, the nightmares—No, please no—the candle
left burning that nearly. . . . Then, one night, the scream
when she saw you, yet didn't. And no one but you
suspects, not even her. The secrets of identity.
The stories we tell. What exits us must always
also enter. Incubus, Oedipus, Judas
kiss. . . . What have these to do with empty bottles
hidden in the backs of cabinets? Words
know nothing of the mouths that shape them.
So what words are left for you who wants
to leave? Chickenshit? Judas, you've already
used and probably will again. It's not like you
planned any of this, yet here in the thick of battle
the gloves and capes and masks are off, and she
who would have been isn't anymore. An Amazon
stands in the other corner, someone you never saw
entering the ring. And what now? Abandon
your partner, throw in the towel, tired of holding back
her hair? Or is this too-ready recrimination?
Did you already know what you'd planned when last
you left her, flying off to wrestle reptiles
in your head? All you know is this: This
woman, this new figure is, even now, too fitting
for your own. You both have hidden things, terrible
things, have burned and been burned, but neither wants
to keep those secrets alone. She, your other love,
once plummeted from plane into power, got caught
in the current, volts vaulting her system one organ
at a time, but electric burns are not like any
other. They follow no preordained path.
Moving like life itself through the body,
they mark you. They mark her. They are obvious
and they are beautiful and—even in her robes,
one ringlet shining against skin against scar—
they move you like she moves you, passing through
your body one wonder at a time. So, Judas,
you must choose. You will watch Lois crumble
and cry and beg, and you (you already know this),
you will leave. You will turn from her and deny
and deny and, finally, at cock crow, hope
that what you do will make her hate you. Then,
when you have left libation behind, left word
for wisdom, reporter for typist, flesh for spirit
and spirit once more for she who is, more fully
flesh . . . Then, only then, will you also leave costume
for consummation, embrace all you find
in the ring, let go the little battles and learn to love
the fire that comes with this new sun, this scarlet
skald, herself a herald of Hera's word, the only flame
you were meant to fight, what no candle left
lit could burn, what no gilt, no grudge could match.
Bryan D. Dietrich's poetry has appeared in The New Yorker, Poetry, Ploughshares, The Paris Review, The Nation, The Harvard Review, The Yale Review, Shenandoah, and many other journals. Winner of The Paris Review Poetry Prize and a "Discovery"/The Nation Award, Bryan has published two books of poems, Krypton Nights and Universal Monsters.
copyright © 2008, Bryan D. Dietrich
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CONTENTS
FICTION
—An Apotheosis
FORREST AGUIRRE
—Annabel on the Eighteenth Floor
C. L. BRUSSEL
—Stuck
JASON ERIK LUNDBERG
—Rhapsody in Transverse Vibration
MARC SCHUSTER
—The Red Door
ERIK SECKER
—Nadya
ZDRAVKA EVTIMOVA
POETRY
—W.W.F.
BRYAN D. DIETRICH
—W.W.J.D.
BRYAN D. DIETRICH
—Several Stories, Single Bound
BRYAN D. DIETRICH
—Peniel
MICHAEL NEAL MORRIS
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