we did it on a clear November 17th
not April 1st
this wasn’t in the spirit of a prank
I’d seen a TV-B-Gone let loose inside a showroom
changing reality shows
commercials and celebrity gossip
to featureless black plasma
I considered the principle
my seven friends and I waited for the dusk
to drive outward in eight directions
transmitters at full tilt
car lights excepted
everything in Times Square went dark
treating New Yorkers to a once-in-a-lifetime show
Nature’s marquee of the constellations
and scroll of the Leonids
Robert Laughlin lives in Chico, California. He has published 100 short stories, 200 poems and one novel, Vow of Silence. His website is at http://www.pw.org/content/robert_laughlin.
