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Power Onage

The still, heavy air abruptly speaks
in a polite, light crackle that sends
overhead fans turning, clocks beeping,
air-conditioning vents huffing—all while
the refrigerator hums in relief and clinks
the ice-maker like an old man settling his teeth.
In the bright wash of newborn bulbs,
white walls gleam with reassurance.
”See,” they say. “We’re still here.”
The television spills commercials that scatter
the cats back to the bedrooms. We mourn
the movie we lost in the thunder’s boom,
and then we begin another somber cleaning-up.

Snuff out the flaming cinnamon candle-jars
under round, weighted glass caps.
Snap the rubber bands around the jumbo
Uno cards we passed between the shadows.
Return the Coleman lantern to the mantel,
where a dusty circle waits for the metal base.
Strip the flashlights of their batteries.
Toss the matchbooks in the junk drawer.
Call the family members far away—”We’re fine.
The really bad weather missed us.”—and then
remember the stories we told to pass the time:
Dad and Mom jokes full of dumb puns and, worse,
all the different versions of horrible housework
and godforsaken family vacations flavored
with inescapable shame and schadenfreude.

Look around at who we are—a little grubby in the light—
and when we turn back to where we were before,
wonder why such face-to-face only happens
when the oh-so-helpful power fails.

—
Brian C. Billings is a professor of English and drama at Texas A&M University-Texarkana, where he also serves as the editor-in-chief for Aquila Review. His poems have appeared in Abandoned Mine, Ancient Paths, Argestes, The Bluebird Word, Confrontation, Evening Street Review, and The Woven Tale Press.

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