Adamantium
To move beyond the wreckage,
I begin playing mind games, imagining
myself made stronger, transfigured
into the selves of heroes, survivors.
One day, I知 the first primate that dared
stand upright, a blasphemous prehistoric
fish-thing lugging my scaly body onto land
at the risk of drowning in that dry air.
Then I知 the holy Buddha—
wholly bald and happy,
my blessed spirit bulging larger
than even my fat belly.
Yet another, I知 Emily Dickinson—
self-contained and productive,
even though isolated, comfortable
breaking my own maidenhead.
I continue jumping through history
and skins: I知 Johnny Appleseed,
mythical stud muffin, spreading
my seed everywhere as I roam the land.
I知 Phyllis Wheatley—dangerous,
starting my own kind of revolution,
my hand wrapped tightly
around a newfangled sword.
Then I知 pure fantasy:
the stony-faced Sphinx
riddling haughtily, high
above pathetic human foibles,
an implausibly green
space alien looking down
on self-destructive Earth rituals
from my silvery hovercraft,
the wicked pickle finally
breaking free of its shattered dish
in Wuthering Heights,
ready to rock-and-roll.
But lately, I keep returning to this
particular character from the comic
books of my youth, the unruly
Canadian superhero Wolverine—
his entire skeleton replaced with
an indestructible metal frame in
some top-secret government lab,
his enviable mutant superpower
to heal almost immediately
after the worst injury. And
I constantly wonder about
his pitiful heart, still
made of ordinary human muscle tissue,
and I think about how his story
was made more tragic since
that crucial flesh was still vulnerable,
and how those diabolical scientists
must have cackled when they saw
the fragile little thing beating there and,
knowingly, stitched him back up.
Overture
Captious acquaintances chide that
I should have heard—even before
the demanding contralto entered,
even at the oh-so-glorious beginning—
the melody already starting to break
down, the bleak chords and dour notes
disintegrating into a telling cacophony.
And the troubling story thus being told:
something about lack of harmony,
something about inevitable decay.
All of the early discordances—
forgivable, but still audible to
the observant listener, still a threat
to the larger opus if it was intended
unblemished, undiminished. A presaging
of repeated missteps and strident
off-beats, speaking less of control in
the face of chaos and more of an unstoppable
slippage into some other cycle, a heralding
of the tragic denouement sure to come
despite all the sincere effort put in.
Copyright © 2002 James R. Whitley
