Driving
through the country I get caught
Linda
asks me if I am looking at power lines again
Sheepishly
I confess
Occupational
hazard
I
know what those things are
I
stare at drawings of them
I’ve
been to factories that make them
It
is fun to see them
Fulfilling the measure of their
creation
It
can be troubling though
Some
nights numbers haunt my brain
It
gets to where I know I am on the edge
Almost
ready to trip over
Tumble into a world
Where I no longer speak real
sentences
I
can only relate ideas alpha-numerically
According
to the Harmonized Tariff Schedule
I
fear a life of ten digit numbers
Held
together by conjunctions,
Adverbs, adjectives and the
occasional pronoun
It
could happen
More ridiculous thing have
Then
all at once it does
As
we pass one more power pole
I begin to comment
Only
to say, “Look at the cool 8535.90.8020!”
“What?!?!?”
Linda responds, confused
“Right there, on the 4403.10.0020!”
“You’re
not making sense.
Just slow down and start over.”
“OK,
OK . . . See the 7616.99.5030,
Next to the green 8410.00.0030
It is full of frozen 0208.90.2500
And a few
rabid 0106.11.000
You
should pull out the 9301.90.9030
We
might need to protect ourselves!”
“You’re
just silly,” she says, “you know we’re in Mexico!
You only need to classify to 6
digits!”
And
somehow I felt better
I was able to let it all go
Drove
on until I realized I was dreaming
Woke up laughing to myself
Tapped
Linda on the shoulder
Told her she’d never believe the
dream I had
I
was talking about power line splices
Then it all changed
The harder I tried to
explain
Suddenly,
there was a tank full of frog’s legs
And some rabid monkeys
I
told you pull out the machine gun. . .
Just
in case
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