Nacho Body of Christ
for Jack Powers
Our teacher absent, First Communion near,
The self-ordained Craig Weaver intervened.
He blessed Doritos, held them up to share.
(False gods were Triscuits, Wheat Thins, and saltines.)
The Body of Christ.
Amen.
It just seemed wrong,
Practicing as if this crunch were Jesus.
I took it in my palm, not on the tongue:
Three-sided, golden host of powdered cheeses.
In days, our class was stricken: chicken pox.
Me last. The parish stared when, some weeks later,
Having missed Communion with the flock,
I walked alone and veiled, a scabby leper.
What woe if we’d attempted during lunch
To transubstantiate Hawaiian Punch?
Anachronism
Making love? I cringe at the semantics,
Yet I have no better idiom.
That saccharine tablet sucked on by romantics,
Though nobler than a vulgar euphemism,
Sounds absurd. You don’t make cow from steak.
If love’s not there to start, you have a quandary.
Sweet crumb, you don’t make batter from cake.
(If anything is being made, it’s laundry.)
Wonder Woman as Rap Star
Diana Prince, that’s who I am.
Born in ’41 after the war began.
Like Rosie & her rivetin’ for Uncle Sam,
I’m a woman just as super as any man.
I come from Paradise Island, only women together,
But mighty Aphrodite!—I couldn’t stay forever.
I hitched a ride with Major Steve Trevor
& went undercover on a secret endeavor.
I can bend steel bars, but my strength is equal
When spittin’ rhymes that slay; I’m that lethal.
No heavy gold chains, yet I’m regal fightin’ evil—
I rock a red bustier with blinged-out eagle.
If villains shoot me, I’ll deflect it.
If they lie, my lasso will reject it.
If a wrong comes along, I will correct it.
I’m a tough cookie, and you’d better respect it.
When a crook or a hater unleashes drama,
I send him cryin’ to his mamma.
Ain’t gonna let the bad guys harm ya.
I believe in peace, but I ain’t no Dalai Lama.
Peace & justice, that’s my credo.
In navy blue I’m incognito.
All the brutes in cahoots are gonna bleed, oh
I’m an Amazon princess in a star-spangled Speedo.
Nicole Caruso Garcia’s poetry is forthcoming in Crab Orchard Review, PANK, and Mezzo Cammin. Her work has appeared in The Rotary Dial, Measure, The Orchards, The Raintown Review, Antiphon, The HyperTexts, and elsewhere. She is Assistant Poetry Editor of Able Muse. Residing in Connecticut, she teaches at Trumbull High School, where she raps under the alias Capital G.