Mom always purchased the leftover comics
at the end of the month from Woodard’s Drug.

I was in love with too many of them
to pick a favorite. I’d read anything.

I wanted to look like Dazzler with her blonde hair
and roller skates or

at least I thought I could be Betty with her tomboyish charm.

I was drawn to the scrappy

heroes like the unsung Power Pack while my brother
championed the usual Spider Men and Batboys

as if he hoped he’d wake one day
having been bitten

by a radioactive moth or to have suddenly discovered
he was actually adopted

and that his real parents left him all their wealth

along with

a hermit crab shell the size of Manhattan
that could be his fortress

because we thought everything large
was the size of Manhattan.