Kitchen Light: a poem

My newly installed motion

sensor built in LED bulb

kitchen light thinks

its smarter than me

wants to be energy efficient

so a few seconds after I

turn it on it dims a little

and I’m so short that

even if I move

sometimes it doesn’t sense me

right away

so across the room at the

stove or the counter

in the middle of stirring

the soup or chopping onions

I have to raise my hand

in the air

fingers splayed

and wave at it

hello

I’m still here

and it brightens back up

as if delighted

to be acknowledged in

performing its electrified if

menial task sustaining

the light the view for

the mobile inhabitant of

this boxy temperature

controlled contraption

so desperate for interaction

I’m inventing the

anthropomorphization of a

kitchen light

as an experimentation enterprise

just to remain

entertained.

*

Tansy Julie Soaring Eagle Paschold

2–25–22