The Night the Lights Went Out in Andersonville All but the marquee of the Philadelphia Church was dark, where Jesus Saves hung above the coin laundry. The long stretch of Clark, boarded and barred. The tall window where a man with a flashlight stirred from late afternoon sleep. He pulled his head through the limp collar of a t-shirt, scratched. The yellow aim of the bedside lamp breathing through the wall, inspiring moths. I'm talking jugs and jugs of wine. Full jugs and barrels of whiskey. I pull a cork with my teeth. After fistfuls from stemless glasses I think about the shoes of all these strangers at the door, and where is the limp collar factory worker, or the limp collar doorman? I nod and sip as a professorial type tells me how copy, paste, and delete have stolen many verses, the words so immediate they are lost in underdevelopment. How everything is sex: the maple cabinetry, the fish tank, the collection of shoes at the door. There's a cartoon in the bathroom above the towel rack. There's a pony with a dog on its back, a rucksack over its shoulder, the bird-like head of an ice-axe protruding. The dog's lips are parted. Jesus stands with folded hands, considering the dog's demand: Show me how to split the earth. One of my best friends is a phony. He's always out searching for something evil. He set a saucer of hot tea on the table. He hates tea. He carved the table himself. The coliseum is barking in the background, something of la Bella Sera. All of this, the way I see it, is panning the vineyard for gold. I cannot sit alone in the pool hall. I don't smoke cigarettes, now what? I used to pitch coins on the monument steps, now I'm broke. I say this only because in my core I believe that if the lights went out for good, all I'd need is bread and honey and cold beer, pen and paper. I'll use the light above the coin laundry to read. © Jim Davis Jr.