Girl Friday.

Sometimes I wonder just what exactly would happen
if you were a hero
with me as your girl Friday
but I know just how it would turn out

with you on a yacht somewhere in the Caribbean
oblivious to the fact
that your mother and father are being dangled
over a tank of electric eels or ravenous piranhas
with your arch-nemesis laughing like a rabid hyena

or oblivious to the fact
that the world was being invaded by Martians
who think of Earth as some kind of cosmic McDonald's
(mmm...McBrains.)

And while you were off enjoying pina coladas and whale-watching
I'd be the one who suited up, went to Mars,
opened a Peace Corps office there, established a democracy,
promoted conservation and found new food sources...

...just in time for you to leap in and cut the ribbon on the grand opening
of the first supermarket in space
and for you to take all the credit
because you do that
heroes do that
and still expect their coffee and their mail brought to them on Monday morning

but if I was your girl Friday
I'd be gone without even a lipstick note on the mirror
because I deserve some credit for what I've tried to do
and who I've become
and I need a life
with a few less heroes
and a few more real people in it

So get your own damn coffee.