Wonder Woman

The day I told my parents I wanted to trade in
G.I. Joe for Wonder Woman must have set off alarms.
I wanted to surrender my guns for the golden lasso,
more than the dolls, mind you, I wanted to be
Wonder Woman.
I don't remember who stitched the costume,
blue underwear with glued on stars, a red bustier
wrapped around my seven year old sunken chest,
the golden eagle oddly deflated.
The head band and bullet deflecting cuffs made
of cardboard and the length of rope my father had
spray-painted gold in the yard hooked at my side.
I lassoed my poor dad first, demanded the truth,
but there was no magic in those rough, twisted fibers.
If the rope could have squeezed out an ounce
of what he was really thinking,
I would have been dressed up as Superman or Batman,
a manly cape flying out behind me as I ran
around the back yard, hidden from the neighbors,
while my dad devised a way to build
Wonder Woman's invisible plane.

Originally appeared in Chiron Review