Elegy for Gwen Stacy
Spider-Man appeared…I knew he would save her. That was what they did. They saved innocents.
– Phil Sheldon from Marvels #4
I can't stop dying.
The first time was 1973 –
fell off the Brooklyn Bridge,
k**ed by my lover
as he tried to catch me
with his webs.
It was an accident,
he didn't understand terminal
velocity, sudden stops, whiplash.
It wasn't the Green Goblin
who k**ed me, or the falling,
but my hero.
Some people never forget
the way you laugh
or the way your body burns
as you walk away.
People never forgot the way
I died. They told their friends,
re-read those issues
until the staples fell out
and fingerprints dulled the covers.
I died a lot in 1987.
Peter got married that same year.
I still get thank-you letters
from people who claim
if it wasn't for me,
they would have closed
this world off, abandoned it
like so many highway gas stations.
But it's not me.
I didn't restore their faith
in the funny books. It's my dying.
Always my dying.