Light Strikes

The rumors you've heard about light

are true; how it moves really fast,

gets caught in our eyes and has

sharp edges, bleeds forth from flame,

et cetera.

We once thought of light as merely

appearing, due to the invention of dawn

and switches,

back when we stole lightning from clouds,

stuffed it in our walls.

Light was never in motion

beyond waning and waxing,

never a thing that got into a car

and visited relatives.

It just was, like God, who is—

a be verb.

Light found its way into everything,

especially the black hole of our poesy

and never found its way out again

till now.

Light wants a holiday.

Light wants me to stop writing about it

and get on with its demands:

º better pay

º shorter hours

º royalties

º travel expenses

It wants contributing credit for its subsidiaries fire,

shine, beam, gleam, illumine, bright, radiance, and even

effulgence,

all of whom owe light

their glorious livings.

Light says it isn't bluffing.

Light says it wants us to put cash

in a brown paper sack,

drop it in the dumpster in an alley

off of Wabash and 8th.

If we meet its conditions,

light will again appear in our literature,

or else we will open Shakespeare to find

"But soft! What [delete] through yonder

window breaks!"

Light was last seen on a match

traveling northbound towards gas.