Circuit Breaker

by Jeff Burt

We wiped the glasses on our sleeves
but dirty they remained, so lifted the bottle

and the pitch of our throats and poured an inch
just over the lips, to quench and calm

your tremors from the A of AC splitting sense
from expertise, to still the tympani

pounding in my gut from the D of DC
severing time into life and death.

Then we laughed, splashed a second round,
said next time we’d flip the switch,

and rose quivering in joke and audacity,
fused by fear and its common electrification.