A Two-Mile Extension Cord
You’ve run an extension cord
from the village to our house,
a two-mile stroke of lightning.
By stealing power, you hope
to save enough money to buy
a dress like Emily Dickinson’s.
But what did that long cord cost?
And look, it has thickened
and covered itself in scales.
It’s writhing with stark energy,
freeing itself from connections.
I hope it isn’t venomous.
The Forestry Service arrives.
Two rangers stare at the creature.
They want to coil and truck it
to the wilderness near Canada
where it can lounge in the sun
and snack on bear meat and porcupine.
But no truck is large enough
to transport a two-mile flesh-coil
thick as a petroleum pipeline.
How did you create such a creature?
Why didn’t it remain a harmless
if illegal extension cord?
Why didn’t you buy solar panels
like our innocent neighbors?
Please don’t tell me this snake-thing
was the only solution
to excess electrical usage
you thought we could reasonably afford.
This Elegiac Afternoon
You look deeply into the ferns
but find no elves or wood-gnomes
plotting against our supremacy.
We own these acres the way
clouds own the sky they occupy.
Speaking of clouds, our friend
who died the other day claims
a cumulonimbus for himself.
Let’s respect his last gathering
of senses and step indoors to pray
to his dearest fantasy, respecting
his current angle of repose.
When we join him, we’ll discover
dimensions we never pictured,
even if they’re blank as the dark
imposed by power failures.
The ferns rattle like an armory.
No one lives there but spiders
bearing tiny human faces.
You need a magnifying glass
to read their expressions, mostly
grinning with entomology.
Our friend’s cloud has begun to wring
itself in grief. Come inside
before you’re drenched in pallid colors
for which there’s no explanation.
The spiders long to absorb us
into their nets, but problems
of scale arise. You turn away
with the usual political sneer
and the sky closes its borders
against us, almost laughing aloud.
William Doreski lives in Peterborough, New Hampshire. His most recent book of poetry is Mist in Their Eyes (2021). He has published three critical studies, including Robert Lowell’s Shifting Colors. His essays, poetry, fiction, and reviews have appeared in many journals. Website at williamdoreski.blogspot.com.