qarrtsiluni

by Christopher Hennessy

“It will never be safe, Superfriends.
The Legion of Doom is always already
escaping in their skull-shaped rocket ship,
always just fast enough to out-run the Invisible Jet
and even Superman and the Flash.
The loot is heavy in the hold.
And still they zoom into their swamp.

“We are not who we think we are.
Look in their eyes, Lex’s deep, seductive
onyx, the ragged black holes of the Scarecrow,
the zombie gaze of Solomon Grundy, can’t you see it!
Can’t you see it in the way they lick their lips, Grod
the Gorilla, the uber-genius, eating bananas with his feet.

“Watch them as they crowd into their skull,
their foreheads nearly touching as they plan
their next heist, seated, suddenly like presidents,
at their Roundtable of Doom.

“We are the soft, hidden and heavy gold bars
the enemy desires, we are the ray guns
they steal every other week, the very theory
of might-makes-right Lex bangs out, his manly
fist never once splintering his tiny little podium.

“Admit your face, too, etched angular
where it should be soft, blunted chin
where it should be jutted in heroism.

“Save the kitten from the tree
and make love to your doppelgänger
and give up the tights, for god’s sake,
give up the tights and peace will reign.”

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Christopher Hennessy (blog) is the author of Outside the Lines: Talking with Contemporary Gay Poets (University of Michigan Press). He is studying in the PhD program in English Literature at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. His poetry was selected for the special “Emerging Writers” issue of Ploughshares. His poetry, interviews, essays, and book reviews have appeared in American Poetry Review, Verse, Cimarron Review, The Writer’s Chronicle, Crab Orchard Review, Natural Bridge, Wisconsin Review, Bloom, Knockout, Brooklyn Review, and elsewhere.