In order to view this poem as the author intended it to appear, we suggest reading it on a computer screen or in the landscape orientation on your phone.

Fuse
Bart Edelman

Like the rest of us,
It’s often inclined to trip—
Every now and then—
When the circuits overload
And the current’s flow
Has nowhere else to go.
A simple fix, of course,
Demands we reset the breaker,
Or replace the broken fuse—
Might it ever come to that.

I imagine I’d be better set,
If this were my only fate,
Powering off and back on, again,
At so much as a moment’s notice.
Let destiny grind to a halt,
Because of a bad connection,
Hidden somewhere in the system—
Undiagnosed until I’ve reached
What limited charge remains.

Perhaps, I’m on a slow decline,
Losing juice without realizing it.
Should I open up, one day,
To a more thorough examination,
Who knows what an electrician may find.
For now, I’m humming along—
Rock steady and ready—
Not even a surge in mind.
Yet I sense, at any time,
I could blow sky high…
And burn this old house down.

—
Bart Edelman’s poetry collections include Crossing the Hackensack, Under Damaris’ Dress, The Alphabet of Love, The Gentle Man, The Last Mojito, The Geographer’s Wife, and Whistling to Trick the Wind. He has taught at Glendale College, where he edited Eclipse, a literary journal, and, most recently, in the MFA program at Antioch University, Los Angeles. HIs work has been widely anthologized in text books published by City Lights Books, Etruscan Press, Fountainhead Press, Harcourt Brace, Longman, McGraw-Hill, Prentice Hall, Simon & Schuster, Thomson/Heinle, University of Iowa Press, Wadsworth, and others. He lives in Pasadena, California.

Know anyone who might appreciate reading Bart’s poem?
Why not share the link to this page?

Have you read these poems:
Eclipse by Corinne Wohlford Mason
I Once Met a Girl from Oregon by Mark Nemeth

Table of Contents