Poet's Corner: Wonder Woman by Ada Limón
Apr. 16th, 2026 04:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stonepicnicking_okapiI finally finished the poetry anthology This is the Honey edited by Kwame Alexander and now have moved onto Poetry Unbound: 50 poems to open your world edited by Pádraig Ó Tuama. This is the first one.
Wonder Woman by Ada Limón
Standing at the swell of the muddy Mississippi
after the Urgent Care doctor had just said, Well,
sometimes shit happens, I fell good and hard
for New Orleans all over again. Pain pills swirling
in the purse along with a spell for later. It’s taken
a while for me to admit, I am in a raging battle
with my body, a spinal column thirty-five degrees
bent, vertigo that comes and goes like a DC Comics
villain nobody can kill. Invisible pain is both
a blessing and a curse. You always look so happy,
said a stranger once as I shifted to my good side
grinning. But that day, alone on the riverbank,
brass blaring from the Steamboat Natchez,
out of the corner of my eye, a girl, maybe half my age,
is dressed, for no apparent reason, as Wonder Woman.
She struts by in all her strength and glory, invincible,
eternal, and when I stand to clap (because who wouldn’t),
she bows and poses like she knew I needed the myth,
—a woman, by a river, indestructible
Wonder Woman by Ada Limón
Standing at the swell of the muddy Mississippi
after the Urgent Care doctor had just said, Well,
sometimes shit happens, I fell good and hard
for New Orleans all over again. Pain pills swirling
in the purse along with a spell for later. It’s taken
a while for me to admit, I am in a raging battle
with my body, a spinal column thirty-five degrees
bent, vertigo that comes and goes like a DC Comics
villain nobody can kill. Invisible pain is both
a blessing and a curse. You always look so happy,
said a stranger once as I shifted to my good side
grinning. But that day, alone on the riverbank,
brass blaring from the Steamboat Natchez,
out of the corner of my eye, a girl, maybe half my age,
is dressed, for no apparent reason, as Wonder Woman.
She struts by in all her strength and glory, invincible,
eternal, and when I stand to clap (because who wouldn’t),
she bows and poses like she knew I needed the myth,
—a woman, by a river, indestructible
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