Elegy with TV Repairman & the Black Moth of Light

by Marcus Wicker

 

In a flash of light the frame is empty.

The tube is out, but the sound hangs on.

My reflection, suddenly static –

stilled slurry in the sixty-inch screen.

When you come back

as the tv repair man with an aux cord

& MIDI beats. As spittle & a cheesy record.

Your easy laugh flapping at the seams of his empty

mouth. A pinched sound wave played back.

Nasally, bereft of pretty teeth. But still you. Switched on

& refusing to troubleshoot. DOOM played off screen

like a name tag, when you returned as a photostatic

negative. Inverted with light. As hum of radio static

from the other side against causality. No “Pinched cord”

or “Bad fuse.” No recourse for the blanked screen-

saver: two Black suns, linked against a dorm wall. The frame an empty

text bubble blued by loss. Unfixable as a Scantron

voided after an early bell. Without answers you’ve come back

to me. Mush mouthed, sniffling. Mumbling “defect.” Come back

as nothing ghoulish. Neither absolution nor malice, for my astatic

contact, the missed kids’ parties. For waiting too long to check in on

your family. Here you are, whistling by the sofa table, aux cord

in-hand. Waving off doom with your gospel rap. Marking empty

journals. Inviting me to worship team rehearsal. Never mind my HD heap.

I think I see your mouth leaking honey. But then the screen

is transfigured & I am prostrate. Fever-drenched. Crawling back

& forth between beds on the top floor, emptied

of breath, fluids, faith. Everything but this ecstatic

loneliness that grates like shame in the body unanswered. Discordant

& sick, dolorous. My dismay is on-

going when you flutter down from the ceiling fan & alight on

my philtrum. You’re here then gone & I am baffled by God. Weeping

& angry with myself for not loving you in the right chord.

With looped handclaps. & 808 lungs. As chorus & verse – nothing back-

masked. I miss your baroque laugh most, misting lightness. Dear Ray. Dear static

guard. I miss you whole. Missed your last call. My window to reconnect: empty.

& yet, you return at dawn. As percussion. As a screen yanked back

on my grief. As sequined black tambourine wings towing me from stasis

with an aux cord, ringing out: Come close. You don’t have to be empty.