Your Eyes are the Color of a Light Bulb Floating in the Potomac River
Just when it is time to say goodbye
I think I am finally understanding the light bulb
but not milk or NAFTA or for that matter paper money
let's not even get into my stovetop coffee maker
I don't even get how this book is fastened or why that orchid
seems happier or at least its petals a little whiter
when it is placed right up against the window
or how certain invisible particles
leave the wall and enter the cord and somehow make the radio
make the air become
Moonlight Sonata or Neighborhood #3
basically a lamp is a mechanism
to shove too many electrons into a coil
or filament a light bulb i.e. a vacuum surrounds
the first filament was made in 1802 out of platinum
as soon as it was made to glow the air
took the electrons away
which left it charred like a tiny bonfire
just like ones we have all seen when we squint and hold the glass bulb
that no longer glows when we flip the switch
I wonder if my fear this morning sitting in the dark and listening to music
is anything like the inventor of the telephone growing deaf
and knowing all those poles and wires were starting to cover the land
and someday everyone would be able to get exactly what they want
36 The Paris-American
Matthew Zapruder is the author of three collections of poetry, most recently Come On All You Ghosts, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. Currently a Guggenheim Fellow, he is an editor for Wave Books, and teaches at UCR-Palm Desert's Low Residency MFA in Creative Writing. He lives in San Francisco.
