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.