An accident out there on Some Street, some State,
and after we returned to the Best Western
after we had grabbed a meal at Olive Garden,
where the Zuppa Toscana is to be recommended
way above the Chicken Marsala, in any State,
after, anyway, we returned to our room (do
you know what it’s like not to remember
your unlabeled room number if you are
an old person in the era of the Key Card?)
which, lucky for us, is placed in an obvious corner—
and after I had returned to my MacBook Air
to test the air for information on The Orphans’ Train
that I wanted for a more difficult poem than this
promises to be, and after it wouldn’t connect and after
Carol had tried the TV to check out HBO which
we refuse to have at home anyway, in preference
to more æsthetic efforts, like … well, like what?
That is when she let me know that we had no TV
in the room. So, for the first time ever, I read
through today’s USA Today. Blackout all round.