Mom hates Devastator Island’s cool gore, and pops
us when we pretend to be Captain Carnage at church.
“Professor X is a gimp,” Freddy taunts my idol
on the day that I try to melt his Pokemon cards
with heat vision, not Dad’s Marlboro lighter
like that doofus school rent-a-cop claims.
We search the girls' locker room for signs
of alien transformation like we learn from Mitsu
Star, our bootleg anime stashed in our bedrooms
on random weeks like terrorist cells on America's
Most Hunted. Our Koran is Urotsukidoji: Legend
of the Overfiend, and we bend down to memories
of its probing limbs in the bathroom. Uncle Kenny
says when drunk that he and Dad had to survive
with diagonal boobies on the encrypted adult channel.
Grandpa swears the rotating channel listings contain
cryptic messages of the Rapture every seventh viewing,
but we distract him with virile cowboys and sad wives
on the Mexican soaps, and he screams for bullets
like he did in ‘Nam. QVC sometimes sells rabbit
vibrators when we sneak down for midnight grub,
and we worry about the fate of animals in small cages.
One network showed an edited Cheech and Chong movie.
We didn’t get it, but our old, forbidden babysitter said
they’re real funny. We learn to scan neighbors' windows,
department store TVs and phone screens for the terrible
and tasty. Our own show is being filmed right now, caught
in wide eyes and shaking lenses, a lethargic alien armada
slapping tentacles at our adventures as we sneak through
the cracks, behind the scenes, away from parents’ screams.
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