By Charles M. Sumid     Copyright 2025     Written 2011

The refrigerator’s hum dies.

Darkness arrives.

Clock faces go blank.
Even the small red light
that says “stereo”
closes its eye.

My hands find walls by memory.
Each switch clicks to nothing.

The flashlight under the sink
has migrated elsewhere.

Outside,
the neighborhood disappears.
Trees I’ve passed for fifteen years
stand closer in the dark.

A dog barks.
Another.
Then silence so thick
I hear my own blood.

My neighbor’s flashlight
sweeps his yard.
We wave our beams at each other
across the black.

When power returns,
the darkness doesn’t leave.
It waits in spaces between things.

For days,
I pause at light switches,
listening.