Sidekick
I live to ride in the sidecar
next to the Caped Crusader, sinewy
in snug Spandex, masked
dark anonymity—fist-tight, chests puffed—ready
to jump kick alley fights—BAM! POW! ZAP!—
utility belts loaded:
spear gun, gas torch,
missive boomerang & mini-mines. Gotham lit
and scraping the scum-night sky.
Testosterone-fueled and bomb-quick, we explode
to thwart each foe’s terrorist scheme
to take over the planet. For you, dear citizen,
we’ve hung, hands bound above boiling urns
of toxic, chemical-green broth,
tortured, uncertain
of escape. We wriggle and squirm
to loosen a pinkie finger,
always finding
the loop in a knot
and trap door for lightning
escape. Unsuspecting denizens,
watch us flash past after
each fight. Me tucked
in the sidecar, black-winged,
leaning into slick, megalopolis
curves, his silent devotion
to clean spotless a city of sinister crime.
You clap, toss pansies, cheer, point
at our capes, fanned and flapping
in unison, proud as the American flag, headlong
past sirens that come too late, toward the next
life dangling from a smoking high-rise, worlds
more heroic than our own, alive
to eject each criminal from his riddling mind.
—Jeff Walt
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Jeff Walt’s poems have appeared in journals such as Alligator Juniper, The Sun, Los Angeles Review, Connecticut Review, Inkwell, New Millennium Writings, The Good Men Project, Harpur Palate, Cream City Review, The Ledge, and Slipstream. Several poems from his chapbook, Soot were selected and scored by composer David Sisco and performed at Carnegie Hall. He is a Regional Editor with the San Diego Poetry Annual. www.jeffwalt.com.