Still vivid
still a visceral memory
the day I climbed the bluff
below our summer home
and my leg brushed
against an insulated wire
that I thought safe
but was still live with current
two hundred twenty volts that fed
the pumphouse just below
I lay there helpless
flopping on the wire
a fish caught on a hook
and thrown down
on the deck
after awhile my body
chose to flop off
and like someone who's been
struck by lightning
and survived
I felt as if I'd died
and by some fluke
come back among the living
I suspect that's why
though I was just a boy
of ten or twelve
I never told a soul