Recalibration

Polly Buckingham

The repairman arrives at night to fix

the telephone wires fried by lightning.

He unscrews a metal box encasing a joint,

and a tangle of colored cords spills out

like a half-remembered dream. It works,

he says. But it will never be the same.

I stand in the road and watch him

drive into the gray dawn, his palm

held open out the window.