I: Fever

I'm so old I can remember
my first TV. My grandmother.
gave us the money because (she
said) I was sick--a star of light in
our living room, a bulbous square rolling
bands of black and gray like
a laughing epileptic, horses with
long legs cut their hooves through
rivers of sweat and the rocks of the
canyon were cleft like flanks of the
sun parched downspiralling when
the boy awoke to his father's ah
he's only faking it and my mother
sat at my shoulder on the bed.
No more was said. The fever cracked like
a rotting egg so that I could watch Ed Sullivan.

I never got things straight, not
for years. We never talked (still
don't)--never needed to when
TV filled the silent breach with such
rich movement while each ignored the
still forgotten hurt. When I needed to
know where the hidden streams and
fissures lay so I could ride my
life into its only future I
watched Little Joe and Hoss wrap
urgent problems in solutions trimmed
to fit commercial time.

My children now have colour and
comedy's the thing. The plots are
telescoped through pratfalls and
embarrassments for both sexes
and one-liners are scored off one and
all--wonder to wisdom in a
little over twenty minutes.
Life in easy units eases all this
human wreckage into the refuge of
a spontaneous roar of joy.

We are such stuff as laughtracks are made of
and our little lives, if properly recorded,
can outlast the longest sleep.