The storm would not abate
that night, the lightning

blinded me. He said
I arched off the bed a foot

or more, screaming, he said he
thought I was struck and I was,

and when the dream sheets
of white light kept repeating,

I’d wake up trembling
and roll toward him. One night,

after yet another bolt, I reached
for the bedside lamp and the bulb

lit and frizzled at my touch.
What did it mean?

He called me “witch” and I
married him, then lived for

a decade in the lesser light
of our fusion. Only it wasn’t that,

just need and lust scrawled tight.
But I was talking of light,

how it blinded and illuminated,
I was talking of visitation and power,

not the unbending lure of his eyes.