out of the cave

lightbulbs planted in fall, dead, burnt out, shattered
shards spread along the bare, dark earth, only the faintest
reminder of the book read at bedtime

neat rows of promise neglected for years, forgotten,
rotting until some electric version of the second coming

let there be light bulbs, said the god of incandescence, god of the city,
god of long working hours, god of no sleep, god of deteriorating eyesight,
god who drenched the moon in tungsten and paid off the stars

living in the light of our ancestors, burning away pterodons to launch
one more email before bed, late night reruns of I Love Lucy
squeezing brontosauri until their eyes pop because we are going

to turn the earth into a star of its own, we will be seen
from Pluto in some vain hope that he’ll give up Persephone,

as if shedding light on vacuous dark ever changed someone’s ways, as if
we didn’t need to submerge ourselves in darkness first,
generating our own light out of candles and childhood songs

redeemed in the spring as a young child digs
in the wet leaves, pebbles, and poor soil,
a glimmer catches her eye