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I WONDER/ßn/flM D. Dietrich Diana, like any othergirl with new clothes, cannot wait to try them on! —Wonder Woman #1 Question is, would I matter if I didn't tout these tits? If my legs weren't, total, seventy-two Inches of eye candy? And get a load of the getup___ WeU, if it doesn't get you up, you're more than mostly dead. Whitman said there is that lot ofme and all so luscious, but then he didn't have to hide the lot in a hanky. Try fighting Hirohito Ui heels, Nazis in a nightie, crazed crackheads with the wind wolf-whistling up your crack. I defy you guys to name just one super savior, one with a prick, who lets it all hang out. Sure, they leap about In longhandles, über Underoos, but even Underdog unzips more than me before hiking a leg. So, okay, definitely not a dog. It could be worse. I could look like Lois, maybe Hawkgirl after a turkey shoot. But when I hear that other busty bombshell say I'm not bad, I'mjust drawn that way, I have to wonder, do aUen androids really need to know I have nipples? Does Wonder Man buy Nair by the crate? Shanna the She-Devil, does she worry over her pits? I don't suppose I've ever had another option. It's all about cleavage, and I don't just mean what I could do with an arrow and a dozen ax-heads. To do what I do—saving you, The Missouri Review · 125 Ui this world that would, otherwise, have me Amazon, Amazon only—to do it dirty, hairy, Ui a jumper, to do it plumper would beg the old joke. You know, the one about that kid. Let's say Tim. To save himself, his town and the like, he had to stick his finger In the dyke. She beat the shit out of him. 126 · The Missouri Review Bryan D. Dietrich PRINCESS/Bn/ím D. Dietrich I wonder ifI am gettingjealous ofmy other self. —Diana Prince Princess? My eye. Leaving paradise, we all want to believe we were more before, not less. Yes, it might be easier not to dress ourselves In wristlets, gown, the long fall we once wore Ui another land, that last Ufe. . . . Easier to go forward undiminished, beUeving ourselves ever larger than we were, but the thing is, we tend Uke rats to follow the fife into the mountain, run up short against the wall, look back and see what children we were, following too, and want never to have left. Swallowing what we've chosen is hard. No, better to call back to that other self, say, Don't leave town, than admit you're more a princess, now you have no crown. To admit Tm more princess now that I've no crown is to say that what I had was not what I remember, to believe this life, success dressed as Wonder Woman, preempts Paradise. W. W., that clown, bests Prince, princess? I guess Tm just confused, tired of being more choice than myself, better than what I was, more Goddess less the gods. Not fat, Uke Etta. Not pawn, dear Steve. But used, used to wui the prince, to trump this very Prince that I've become. Yet who am I to hate what I have made? To envy myself the ticker tape, accolade, parade? Still, when I put on those tights, saved Steve from stints The Missouri Review · 127 Ui the stockade, from Poison—oh, the perils I could listwhy was it the lie he loved and not the lonely typist? 111. Why the lie? Was it love? The lonely typist? I know Kent ducks such dramas too, but by Hecate, for him it was only two. Me? Tm a fucking trinity. Mama's girl. Heroine. Mouse. Why is it us, women, always, stuck with messier mental houses? TripUcate Girl? Huntress? Lightning Lass? Oh, and then U we cross the abyss, the dark divide between simple detective and, weU, marvel, there's Marvel Girl, née Jean Grey, a.k.a. Phoenix, a.k.a. Dark Phoenix, later...

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