The second one that I'll read from my early days is called
"The Man Struck 20 Times by Lightning."
I happened to be at a particularly boring White Sox
game on the night that they gave as the door prize the Guinness
Book of World Records.
So I spent my evening reading the Guinness Book,
and there was a man who had a record for being struck
by lightning more than any other, I think,
American citizen.
It wasn't an international record, but rather
a national one.
So I imagine what life would be like with that person.
I put myself in the place of being, I don't know,
I guess his girlfriend.
I'm not sure I'm married to him in this poem.
"The Man Struck 20 Times by Lightning."
"I've known him so long I've almost
forgotten the first photo he showed me,
the helpless orphan in the cloud-like bonnet
abandoned in a rainstorm.
And the scrapbook, boy struck by lightning on little league
field, teen struck by lightning at graduation exercise,
bride and groom struck by lightning at alter, one dies."
I guess that's why I'm not married to him, I guess.
I survived, so it couldn't have been me.
"Extraordinary yes, but his relationship
with lightning, which seems the most personal in nature,
no longer astounds me.
I sometimes think of lightning as his pushy employer,
at other times he is the master, lightning
the recalcitrant servant.
He is the ship, lightning the challenging sea.
His favorite is him as countryside, lightning
the endless white fence.
Often I wonder whether he's contrived the danger
to make his attachments more tender.
I must admit I can't think of the speed of lightning
without some tears.
In this way, I'm like the mother of the baby born
with a full set of teeth.
Night after night, she lies awake,
examining the record books, imagining his dubious future.
Charlatan, I say on rainy nights,
for he's never been struck in my presence.
Yet with every weather forecast, I fear his loss,
knowing I'd miss those singed greetings,
those thunderous goodbyes."