TRANSCRIPT

I’m Maggie Smith, and this is The Slowdown.

I never understood how no one recognized that Superman and Clark Kent were the same person. He went into the phone booth as a man and emerged as a superhero, like a caterpillar metamorphosing into a butterfly. But here’s the thing: You wouldn’t ever mistake a butterfly for a caterpillar, or vice-versa. A butterfly emerges from a chrysalis looking completely different! But Superman? C’mon!

As someone who alternates between wearing contact lenses and wearing thick, black-rimmed glasses (à la Clark Kent), I know I am not incognito when I take off — or put on — my glasses. Everyone knows it’s me. I would need a different kind of disguise if I wanted to be unrecognizable. A Halloween costume with a mask, or an elaborate cosplay getup. I’d need to take on an entirely new character.

In truth, both Clark Kent and Superman are versions of the same man. But when people see one version, they don’t know the other side to him exists. Everyone believes the disguise, for some reason.

I think that works for us in the real world, too. When we wear a costume, or even an uncharacteristic outfit, it’s possible to let go of the expectations other people set for us. Sometimes disappearing into another identity makes you more of yourself, not less. Being inside a persona might make you freer, not more constrained.

In today’s poem, costumes provide essential cover. Only disguised as others, concealed, can the speaker and her love be their true selves.

Cheap Magic
by Arielle Hebert

Of course we said yes
when a friend asked us to star

as robots in a short film for school.
Cardboard box bodies spray-painted silver,

arm and neck holes cut out. Box heads with 
different expressions on each side.

No one on the crowded beach could tell
we were two girls holding hands,

slow dancing the robot in the waves,
pressing our box faces together as the sun set.

Even my parents, who’d forbidden me
from seeing her after catching us

kissing over our math books,
watched the final cut and clapped 

when the robots got married
at the end. All it took was a cheap magic

suit of armor, paper and paint
to protect us. I’ve carried that shield with me.

I call on it like a patron saint. Even now,
when I’m wishing her well in her new life,

that is the secret light I throw around her,
silver and shining. 

“Cheap Magic” by Arielle Hebert from BOTTOM FEEDERS © 2026 Arielle Hebert. Used by permission of Black Lawrence Press.