Replication

He replicated himself one dark
and dismal day when the rain
wouldn’t stop and the people
who lived near him–the ones he
never spoke to but watched from
the corner of his eye–stayed inside
and watched static on their broken
televisions and listened to atonal
screaming from men and women
who lived and died by the radio dial.

What mischief shall we undertake?
he asked his duplicate, who thought
long and hard before deciding to steal
everyone’s light bulbs so they would
swim in darkness and cry out for comfort,
but no one would come to comfort them,
not even their erstwhile mothers who lived
in a land where light bulbs were plenteous
and never stolen…not even they would come