LESLEY WHEELER

The Electrician's Mate, 1954

The steel pin coiled his arm like a filament
in a tungsten bulb. He had tumbled off
a scaffold while wiring neon signs. Now
he could not join the army, hold a gun.

                                  ~

The sky burned incandescent overhead.
He steered his family into the cellar,
leaned out with a hissing cigarette, watched,
counted the survivors under his breath.

                                  ~

Radium needles were inserted but
escaped, jutting through his skin. He wanted
to see rhododendrons flare awake,
not just the cage of his bed, his cancer.

                                  ~

You become your job and miss it more than
your wife, your children. Glass breaks but the current
is live. Anyone can see it leaping
in his eyes, searching for a way out.