MILKWEED

I miss the milkweed that stood
in the ditch like dusty soldiers,
their stems full of thick white blood.
Their leaves were rough tongues
licking the air. Their flowers were
clusters of small pink bells ringing
for the monarch who travels alone.
I miss the scent of heavy honey in
the noon heat, and the pods, green
boats carrying cargos that grew
until the seams could no longer hold.
I miss how they broke open into clouds
of silk, spilling brown coins with white
wings. I miss how the air was suddenly
full of floating ghosts, drifting low over
the earth. They are gone. I miss them.
They’ll never be back. That’s the law.

*

SUPERMAN

I wasn’t interested in Superman comics
as a kid until I learned he was Jewish,
until I learned that Siegel and Schuster,
two Jewish guys in Cleveland, invented
him, until I learned his birth name, Kal-
El, is Hebrew for the voice of God and
his father, Jor-El, means God will uplift,
until I learned they were sons of the Pale
of Settlement, knew the story of the clay
man in Prague, built a savior out of ink
and paper whose strength was the hope
of the persecuted and changed his name
to Clark to sound like everyone else, put
an “S” on his chest as a sign of the law.
He was a Moses. In a cradle built from
the ruins of home, he crossed the dark
sea of the stars alone. His Egypt was
Kansas where the Kents found a boy
who grew up on corn. He wore the suit
his mother sewed for him. The red cape
was a piece of his father’s shroud. It was
an old prayer—the only prayer Yahweh
has ever answered.

*

Nominated for the National Book Award, the Eric Hoffer Book Award, and nominated three times for the Pulitzer Prize, J.R. Solonche is the author of more than 40 books of poetry and coauthor of another. He lives in the Hudson Valley.