Trojan Poetry 46: "Crisis on Infinite Earths: Issues 1-12" by Bethany Schultz Hurst

Crisis on Infinite Earths, Issues 1-12

By Bethany Schultz Hurst

I.

I’m at a poetry convention and wish I were at Comic Con. Everyone is wearing

boring T-shirts.

When I give the lady my name, she prints it wrong onto the name tag. I spell it and

she gets it wrong again. Let’s be honest: it’s still my fault.

II.

Japanese tsunami debris

is starting to wash up

on the Pacific shore. At first,

they trace back the soccer balls,

motorcycles, return them

to their owners. That won’t last.

There are millions more tons.

Good news for beachcombers,

Begins one news article.

III.

In the ‘30s, William Moulton Marston invented the polygraph and also Wonder

Woman. She had her own lie detector, a Lasso of Truth. She could squeeze the

truth right out of anyone.

Then things got confusing for superheroes. The Universe accordioned out

into a Multiverse. Too many writers penned conflicting origin stories. Super

strengths came and went. Sometimes Wonder Woman held the Lasso of Truth, and

sometimes she was just holding an ordinary rope.

IV.

Grandma was doing the dishes

when a cockatiel flew in the open window

and landed on her shoulder.

This was after the wildfire

Took a bunch of houses.

Maybe the bird was a refugee,

But it shat everywhere

and nipped. She tried a while

to find to whom it belonged,

finally gave it away.

Then she found out

it was worth $800.

V.

Yeah, so there are a lot of birds

in poems these days.

So what? When I get nervous

I like to think of their bones,

So hollow not even pity or

regret is stashed inside,

their bones some kind

of invisible-making machine.

VI.

Is that black Lab loping down the street the one someone called for all last night?

Phae-ton, Ja-cob, An-gel, or Ra-chel, depending on how near or far the man

dopplered to my window.

VII.

I can’t decide which is more truthful, to say I’m sorry or that’s too bad.

VIII.

One family is living in a trailer

Next to their burned-out house.

It looks like they are having fun

Gathered around the campfire.

The chimney still stands

Like something that doesn’t

Know when to lie down.

Each driveway on the street

displays an address on a

large cardboard swath, since

there’s nowhere else to post

the numbers. It’s too soon

for me to be driving by like this.

IX.

Crisis on Infinite Earths (1985) cleared up 50 years of DC comic inconsistency, undid

The messy idea of the Multiverse. It took 12 issues to contain the disaster. Then

surviving superheroes, like Wonder Woman, relaunched with a better idea of who

they were. The dead stayed dead.

Now the Universe is divided neatly into pre- and post-Crisis.

X.

I confess stupid things I’m sorry for:

-saying that mean thing about the nice teacher

-farting in the swimming pool

-in graduate school telling everyone how delicious blueberry-flavored

coffee from 7-11 was

-posing for photographs next to beached debris.

How didn’t I know everyone like shade-grown fair-trade organic?

XI.

I wish I could spin around so fast that when I stopped, I’d have a new name.

XII.

Here’s a corner section

Of a house washed up

On the shore, walls still

Nailed together. Some bottles,

Intact, are nesting inside.

I wasn’t expecting this: ordinary

Things. To be able to smell

Someone else’s cherry-flavored

cough syrup. There is

no rope strong enough

to put this back together.

To escape meltdown

At Fukushima-1, starfish

and algae have hitched rides.

They are invasive. What if

they are radioactive? Thank

Goodness for the seagulls,

coming to peck out

everything’s eyes.