Three Poems by Stephanie Burt

Plastic Man Meets Reed Richards in Heaven

Everything seemed to be within your reach:
sex, gadgets, wedding rings, clouds, the roofs of Midtown.
Expert stretcher, gentle landlord, paterfamilias,
best pal of pilots, with a PhD
in confidence, you found an occasion to teach
in every skirmish. Conservation of mass
was never a thing for you, who had it all,
the leading man, the man who understands.

You had my powers. I had no belief
in myself. No wonder I turned myself in
to a chopper, a bedspread, an egg, a red rubber ball,
whatever writers wanted me to be.
Of course I used to be a thief.
Of course I’m always joking. If I meant
what I said, somebody could pin me down.

I remember when there was nothing in my hands.

Alison Blaire Explains Herself

People get into me,
I sometimes think,
Not so much for my voice as for all the glitter
On my belt and sleeves, my dance
Moves, how I swing my hips and hair and see
Into the crowd amid the phosphorescence,
Or else they dig my adaptability,
My spangled endurance, my talent for staying alive.
I know how to silence anyone I don’t
Want to hear. I can switch up any sound
Into a light show that can knock you down:
Try to beat me up and I’ll turn the beat around.
I also know my
History: house, complextro,
Metropopolis, escape room, hyperpop.
I know the moves. I know the repertory.
I wasn’t supposed to be white, or straight, or last
So long. When people cheer
Me on, I love it but also I want
Them to cry
Because they themselves have found love, however
Much it’s a longshot. If I can’t
Keep touring forever I intend to try.
My Eighties story
Is always ending. Disco will never die.

We Are Mermaids

Eyes on the distance, past
the last
homes that remain
above the tideline on the coastal plain,
we listen for the overlap of salt
spray with the laminar
flow underneath. Sun changes everything, this far south.

Nothing for it, this far into our future,
except to be the mermaids, and welcome any
visitor who can help maintain
our underwater villages, carved from basalt
and sediment, full
of chill
ladders and handholds, indigo-grey, with canes

of coral, and broad pillars, and child care
in reinforced bubbles, with painted tails for charm,
and teachers, and town meetings, a kelp farm,
and mazes for children to swim through, and orature,
melodious, easily memorized, and anemones
defending themselves in colonies, on the wet flats,
soft gardens and quadrats
on the low terrain about the harbor mouth.

Stephanie Burt is Professor of English at Harvard. Her most recent books include After Callimachus: Poems and Translations (Princeton UP, 2020) and the superhero-and-fairy-tale chapbook For All Mutants (Rain Taxi, 2021). A new full-length book of her poems will appear from Graywolf in late 2022.