by 
My daughter’s English class spent a lot of time on poems this semester and her grade had a “poetry night” this week where every kid read one of the poems they had written. It was fun — the kids, um, young adults, gave it a good shot and no one died on stage. What can I say — I really liked my daughter’s poem. I hadn’t read it before so I heard it for the first time when she read it that night.
Supergirl
Flying – a breeze floats by my face – I giggle
Soaring – my cape gets tangled in my hair…not again! I groan.
Landing on a
railroad, wind flying past.
On my way home.
Soaring, taking off, these things are hardly elementary, I’m going
over a small town, their holiday lights turned on for Christmas
and its railroad
junction
Over a
small town’s railroad
junction. A man’s scent wafts in the wind… taunting
Small girls at the dress shop screaming “Ahh… paradise!”
A small town’s
dress shop, the newest fashions are nowhere to be found,
but still the girls cry: “Ahh…paradise!” and the young one:
“I love dresses!”
A dress shop…
…I’m thinking
‘Well, I love dresses!’
“Down please!” I shout. The winds carry me to the girls.
I’m thinking
about landing
“Down please!” I scream again
I’m scooping down, my hair straight up, the wind’s so forceful.
NOW I’m landing,
knocking on the door,
scooping
up dresses of the latest fashion.
knocking goodbye,
kicking
up dresses
taking away for my own enjoyment.
Kicking the guard at the door of the shop so I can fly away.
I guess I’m stealing the dresses
I prefer the term “taking”
flying away to my paradise.
One more city before the light fall
I see a cloud ahead, rain tonight.
The black shape looms over my head lightning takes me to a clearer place…
New Zealand, perhaps?
Sunny, partly cloudy.
flying
away
landing on a
cloud
On my way home.
The “I prefer the term ‘taking'” line got a good laugh from the audience. I’m biased of course but I thought it was dead clever to imagine a superhero young girl traveling from city to city across timezones. And super-powered shoplifting — swooping in and taking a bunch of dresses — is an unexpected twist to the aspirational language at the start of the poem.
