The Last Watt

I was halfway through a sentence about grace

when the room gave a sharp, glass 'tink.'

A small, electric death occurred overhead,

the sound of a fingernail snapping in the dark.

I looked up and saw the ghost of the wire,

a tiny, orange hair curling into a question,

before it shivered once and went cold.

The smell followed—a thin, metallic scorch.

It’s the ozone of an ending, a burnt-out star

hanging from a white cord in the ceiling.

I’m sitting in the sudden, absolute weight

of a house that has run out of its luck.

I could find a chair, climb up, and twist

a new sun into the socket, but for now,

I’ll just sit with the smell of the wire

and the way the dark feels like it’s winning.