Ryan Clark​

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Firefighters' 1927 Nightlight Shows No Sign of Burnout

 

For the Mangum light bulb, burning since 1927

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The years of burning in Mangum—

shining even and low as a drop

of lava leaking from the wall—

screwed into a socket and

grew a tongue we bring out

for a story. It tells us to burn

as a fire held without movement.

It tells us even the years

can forget you still exist.

 

A young wattage is undone,

and we move to cup it

with our hands

before it is waste we know

to twist away from. But this

is a story of steadiness

that movement disconnects.

It is a status we use

as a nightlight, as we

are afraid of a thing cut down,

and the Mangum bulb is a life

hanging on to its station,

is a scripture for a vanishing

field of towns.

 

A story is a version of belief

we bear steadily into

unlit corridors, to say:

 

this is a durable life,

we are a still-burning wire.

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