Science, Fiction, Science Fiction

Fiction

The Field

 Some family friends had driven us

 to a field just off a seldom traveled road

 where we were to see the bouncing lights

 wrought by ghosts, or Elvis, or aliens

 we parked

two other families already watching, hands-in-salute.

     A storm was brewing.

 As they squinted, a loan oak before them

 I looked skyward, and what I saw then,

 I tell you, I shall never see again.  The sky sparkled

 at first, like a shorted wire, the clouds

 a churning drop of black ink invading clear water.

 Then the billowy black luminaries filled with light,

 not the amber of helium lamps

 but green.

And the lightning never flashed the forked silver crack

 on the glass-domed ceiling, but crawled,

              like burning wicks

                               from cloud,

                                                   to cloud

  then lit them up like the keys glowing

 beneath an organist’s touch

 only silent.

 Or almost so: a low rumble built momentum

 idling before the cannons fired.

 None of them saw it.

 None of them saw the bouncing lights.

 Only an empty field,

                 the rocks,

                              a tree,

                                      some grass.

            Choking Man Points a Finger

I witness it across a crowded food court:

 A portly man in line for Calzones

 brings his hands to his neck

 eyes wide,

 tongue out.

The line moves to give him room

                                                       to kneel.

 The cashier continues

 taking orders. 

 People with trays

 dodge

 as he crawls.

 Somebody help him,

 the woman yells

 he’s dying.

It is this woman                      in a wheelchair

 who stands on wobbly legs