Edisonia: Corporal of the Guard, No. 1

Our boy, having dismounted from the train
after a long day of others’ doings, others’ pulp
& newsprint shadows, walked to the paddock,

his empty belly a drum, his extra papers
a suit of armour, a sensational buffer between
his small bed & the long shelves & heavy

afternoons in the Detroit Public Library.
Michael Oates, footsore, dirty, would sway behind him
on the horse as it ambled through the ink-pot night

its hooves setting clip-clop type,
its hide against their legs softer than rag-paper,
its gait smooth & predictable

all the way home. On the way, they’d pass the lit
& bustling fort & nearly every night a relay
from man to man would sound through

the cooling night:
Corporal of the Guard,
No. 1!

And Edison would stop the horse & startle
Michael & watch until the man himself appeared, wrapped
in his war like a cloak. A big battle meant papers flew out

of our boy’s hands, bad news a homing pigeon
that always returned to him. But the war wasn’t chemistry,
it wasn’t intermediate or even basic telegraphy:

His family had no slaves. His family had no
slaves & nothing would change if the north won.
Our boy wasn’t officer material,

but, one night, when the call didn’t go out,
Edison piped up: Corporal
of the Guard, No.1!

And the words were picked up & passed
to the next man & the next. And the Corporal appeared,
his brows creased & his horse pawing

the dirt, nickering at the soft nag he could smell out there.
Three nights running, our boy shouted into the blissful
dark. But the third night, the dark exploded

with men, teeth and eyes gleaming as ordinance
gleams when it lands at your feet and you stand there,
curiously unharmed. Michael Oates smiled

awkwardly as a soldier caught up
the reins but our boy slid down in the hubbub
and lit out for home.

The soliders followed. The soldiers
followed, determined to shake the boy like a fist
full of dice.

Edison galloped down the cellar stairs, ran
past his locked laboratory, and made for the room
where they kept the foodstuffs.

He knew there was an almost-empty barrel
of potatoes there, having carried up a eye-full
arm-full of soft tubers and reproduced

his mother's soft sigh at things undone
the night before. Edison hefted the barrel
and emptied the last of the potatoes

into the full barrels next to it. He crouched,
pulling the empty cask over his head
and sat in the stinking resinous dark, rotten

rot up his nose while feet tromped
through the cellar, voices
calling out to his father, who’d been eager

for his news of the war, only to have half an armed
regiment in his sitting room, bristling mad.
You’d think he was the enslaving enemy, those soldiers

glowered

so.

(Do I need to say that Samuel aped an overlord
with a switch the next morning, having found our boy
laid out in his bed, stinking, happy?)