In the Light Factory

Half-moon of sweat, small hook
of a scar, broken glass
across the burnt stone of a knuckle—
this is Standard Electric Inc.
Friday evening at 4:45.
Soon you will stop making light

after eighteen hours at the mould,
and the steady white circuit of sleep
is all that will matter.
Go home to bed, to dream
the conduit crossing another life—
beyond the surge and spark seared

against the back of your eyes—
the direct current to fortune,
an inheritance of industrial diamonds.
Monday you will rise again,
eat nothing, smoke
and recall the names

for the delicate gauges of copper
filaments, your life slipping
up a sleeve of high-tension wire,
ampere of the blue spark
that won’t stop trying
to make it all as bright as possible.

:: Timothy Geiger, Blue Light Factory (1999)