Patroiophobia, or, Wolverine’s son reflects on Questions of the Body
Her biggest worry?
The attendant trauma of outliving one's peers.
Not the aggression, or, I don't know,
the adamantium claws, but the aversion to aging.
Can you believe that?
Clearly, someone needs a refresher course
on the nuances of superhuman existential crisis.
***
What teenager doesn't want to outpace the grave?
And in such style!
Wrinkles that settle for weeks at a time
and then vanish like gossip,
broken bones bold enough to re-set themselves,
birthday parties ad infinitum?
Sign me up, dominant gene.
I have always wanted to be impossible math.
***
Mom simply wishes that Dad knew how to die.
She blames him for our collective despair, calls his powers
the overt biological expression of a truly supernatural ego.
It’s true. In some ways, he is an amorphous cage
our whole family is trapped inside of,
a haunting older than the house we live in.
Whenever they fight, our home becomes a box full of hot light.
It takes weeks, months, for the three of us to heal.
by Joshua Bennett
Joshua Bennett is a third-year doctoral candidate in the English Department at Princeton University, Callaloo Fellow, budding essayist, and, as of this summer, teacher of 8th grade Composition. His poetry has either been published, or is forthcoming, in Drunken Boat, Poetry Northeast, Wasafiri, Disability Studies Quarterly, Clarion and The Brooklyn Quarterly. Joshua has recited his original work at venues such as The Sundance Film Festival, The NAACP Image Awards and President Obama's Evening of Poetry and Music at The White House.