w.f. owen

flares

I step inside after checking for ripe tomatoes in the garden the heat of California’s summer sun radiating from my pink shoulders another Stage Three rotating black-out spins down the ceiling fan above the article I was reading that warns of increasing solar flare activity . . . supercharged magnetic particles spew from erupting sunspots at 1200 miles per second lighting aurora borealis for midwesterners disrupting a high-frequency radio transmitter . . . fanning my face with this page I rise to lay out the spotted tomatoes some with fissures oozing warm pink juice and seeds on the cool white tile counter . . . the ceiling fan spins, the VCR flashes 12:00.

power outage
a paper airplane
floats to the floor