Comic Book Vs. History

Comic Book VS. History
(1949, 1969)


On the blackboard map your country
was erased, blank, waiting
to be filled with whatever shapes
we chose:

tense
needle turrets of steel
cities

heroes
lived there, we knew

they all wore capes, bullets
bounced off them;
from their fists came beautiful
orange collisions.

Our side was coloured in
with dots and letters
but it held only
real-sized explorers, confined
to animal skin coats;

they plodded, discovered
rivers whose names we always
forgot; in the winters
they died of scurvy.

When I reached that other
shore finally, statistics
and diseased labels multiplied
everywhere in my head

space contracted, the
red and silver
heroes had collapsed inside
their rubber suits/ the riddled
buildings were decaying
magic

I turned back, search
for the actual, collect lost
bones, burnt logs
of campfires, pieces of fur.

Margaret Atwood