Enthusiasts
I admire the basements
of ham radio enthusiasts
with all the knobs and needles
jitterbugging next
to the storage shelves.
I don’t know how
radios work exactly,
but grasp the simple
extending antenna
translating from the atmosphere
a voice shouting, or soothing,
or asking for help,
which is equal parts religious
and eighth grade science class.
And please lord give me
any enthusiast at a too boring dinner.
They understand a simple thing
is never simple and get
all electric about it,
like my beautiful friends
who ignite over words,
who shuffle through the day
like strange kids at recess,
heads down, bending now
and then to place
a moderately interesting rock
into their pockets.
It takes not a small amount
of love to see a thing.
After a long winter
I watched enthusiasm alight
on my wife’s chest.
Or maybe it was always there
and grew gradually
alongside her dahlias
and her Heirloom tomatoes,
which she started in trays
on a bench by the window,
pouring the potting mix
cautiously, and fed from
a copper watering can each day.
Before she left for work
she switched on talk radio
so the wavelengths
could pass through the stalks
and jiggle them strong
with the names of the dead,
and the candidates,
and the stock market crash,
and now she tucks a season
of debate gently into the dirt
so later this summer
she can dress the tomatoes
with a thick slice
of mozzarella, a basil leaf,
balsamic, the awful
politicians speaking
to an empty room,
and our beautiful friends,
our beautifully electric friends
will ignite over this
not simple thing
she has loved
into existence.
◆ ◆ ◆
Narrative
I’m teaching a unit on narrative structure.
The voyage and return. The tragedy. The rebirth.
There are only so many shapes to choose from.
This is my last month in the profession
because I can’t make the paycheck work.
It’s an old story. A handful of students try
for surprise endings in their first drafts.
Usually, an alarm clock wakes the protagonist.
I won’t tell them the only genre invented
in the 20th century was reality television.
Those shows all became competitions.
The cash prizes were enormous.