Energy Crisis

The sort of stalking love which policemen write about

in triplicate; that psychologists and vee-jays equally admonish;

beginning as a slight imbalance in the spark plugs, misfiring;

imitates speech, but finally only exhales into payphones:

increases. Fashions uninvited valentines out of cereal box tops;

self-mutilates; flirts briefly with self-preservation, gives up;

often culminates in a new math, nocturne, or junket in the bin;

is still considered incurable, despite advances in pay-per-view.

This sort of creeping love is the last unexploited source

of renewable energy; must be diagnosed, quarantined and tapped;

harnessed with turbines and stored in industrial batteries;

disseminated along steel pylons and through buried conduit;

piped into every dark room, dissipated, poured out

through fluorescent tubes to keep flicking California bright.

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