GOTHAM NIGHTS

The script calls for rain and it rains: pencil rods

lacerate the page, dark against dark ink,

and the Dark Knight broods, the pathetic fallacy

of a million readers keeping him young

after fifty years of comicbook hell:

too many murders, too many Jokers

doing so well what Jokers do best. Batman falls,

taut on a rope that floats him to a roof

where this month's cast is assembled, where ink

raws the hair of the Joker from the page

as he toadstools a banker, laughs; then he's turning

to the giant bat that has to haunt his trail:

too many murders, too many choking suitors

in the world's script. Cue batarang. He falls.

So buy this month's edition, its plastic bag

hermetic for the corpse in spilled ink.

Rejoice in thirty days of 2-D,

where endings, though unhappy, are designed.

Thank God for the Batman. Thank God for the chill

rain of Gotham that lacerates our saviour,

our statue that guards all bodies that fall.