Frequency by Ben Rasnic

When I was five,
I grabbed onto a live
electric wire fence
that wouldn’t let go.

My grandfather, deftly rolling Prince
Albert into OCB papers from his creaking
porch swing yells “Let go of the wire!”
but the current is too strong

so I am shaking like a dog
that just came in from the rain
& my grandfather is privately chuckling
as he calmly pulls the power box lever down.

58 years later,
I am hurled to the floor
by my ICD firing electric shocks
and as I lie there trembling,

I see my grandfather in 1959
awkwardly rising from his creaking
porch swing, cancer pulsing
through his cholesterol encrusted veins

and as he reaches
for the power box lever,
turns to me and says,

“To be forgotten
is when we truly die.      

Sometimes the memory
just needs
a good jolt.”         



Ben Rasnic currently resides in Bowie, Maryland. Author of four published collections (three available from amazon.com), Ben's poems have been nominated for Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize.