The title, "House Song with Wonder Woman" makes me think of something comic without comedy, as though I should follow the lines like a comic scene of one snippet at a time. However, the first sentence goes against this with, "Wonder Woman came to my house to further the cause." What is this cause? Why is she there? Why the speaker's house? It's a line that catches off guard even though I know it's coming. We have to start somewhere.
"But you're not even Asian," is this the cause? It's a humorous mix-up of intent. This tells me about the speaker but the scene shifts back to Wonder Woman, "She tapped her shield and asked if I wanted to borrow her lasso. To wear it. To help with my poems. To further the cause. No Thanks." I put down the note that it is Wonder Woman who is pushing giving something to the speaker to help.
I wonder how many people reading this poem would know that Wonder Woman is offering the lasso of truth with the ability to force someone to tell the truth if they are caught in it. Also it's a pretty durable lasso in itself. Also I wonder if this matters. I don't think so. I think within the poem this version of Wonder Woman presents another definition of what the lasso can do or help with -- to wear it, to help with poems, to further the cause. And the speaker doesn't want it. Again the poem shift scenes.
"She turned and strutted through my yard, glowing with strength, rippling with majesty." Maybe it wasn't done purposefully or maybe it was, but I like how these lines, lines I feel are cliche and objectifying juxtapose the turning down of the lasso to help out with poems. But this is what the speaker is looking for, "Can you teach me to be like you? I said."
"She sliced earth with her sword, planted some strawberries. Now you know, she said, before flying away." Wonder Woman's response makes me like this version of Wonder Woman. There's some reference to her ability with the sword that turns to a ploughshare, but I don't have to know anything much about Wonder Woman other than what the name implies and go with it.
The speaker, with this knowledge, on how to become Wonder Woman reacts to the departure with, "I sank my knees into irradiated boot prints, as if remnants of her invincibility could suffuse me." More about the speaker, and wants. The object to be better means nothing rather the path to the speaker; yet, when the path is something so incomprehensible, you can only take and think -- "her invincibility could suffuse me."
"I hadn't told her my superpower yet. That I can parallel park. That I'm scared of masks, wearing them, not wearing them. The truth. That I'm no good with plants." I think, "I hadn't told her my superpower yet." changes the way I see the poem from something that goes by scene by scene visually to something more internal. At this point, I'm trying to figure out what is missing, what is left unsaid by this encounter. Then the humorous point comes in with parallel parking which contrasts an equivocation of wearing and not wearing masks. This makes me think of two things: Confession of a Mask by Yukio Mishima, and Wonder Woman doesn't wear a mask.
This equivocation by the speaker of fear of wearing masks or not also plays into the idea of identity. To be Wonder Woman, the known object with all the powers and strength -- something the speaker wants to be like, but the journey to find that definition of self brings fear and I think the poem plays with how the speaker deals with it -- absurdities, surrealism, the lack of ability to be good with flowers. To grow.
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