Thursday, July 25, 2002

BOB’S ELECTRIC DAY It was

BOB’S ELECTRIC DAY

It was a plain old day, he said.
(His smile shone with savored recollection.)
I had a job in San Mateo.  I was driving
back up here like any time.
My cargo van was full of sawdust,
sanders, handtools, all my stuff
and I was cruising just like always,
All at once my radio just stopped.
I started thinking “here’s an earthquake;”
then, before I finished thinking,
yes, before the thought was done,
the blue sky pulsed—a wave of white
washed through the air and for an instant
everything was full of something.
All the air was pushed together.
I could feel it in my fingers
like a hand laid over my hand;
I could feel it through my teeth
and everything inside me seized
and then it ended – all the blue
returned, the air just opened up
and let the color back to normal
It had lasted just an instant
still my skin felt prickly cold, my hair
was all on end, and something tasted weird.
The radio stayed dead.

Turns our that someone not too far
from where I happened to be driving
working at a power station
flipped a switch and sent
a million volts right from the plant
a mammoth bolt from zeus’ fist
he dumped it in the dirt and blew
five hundred thousand circuit breakers
all the way to San Francisco.
Lots of people lost their power,
wondered where the hell it went –
I could tell them, I could see it
starting on an endless journey
leaving earth and flying outwards
bleaching out the very sky.