By Duane Anderson
They turned off the lights
in the hallway and area where I was seated.
The maintenance man was working
on some problem he
was having with the lights,
so there I was,
in the dark,
once again,
like I had been my whole life.
Go ahead; just ask some of the people
I used to work with
or ask my brother or my wife.
It was nothing new.
Each morning I read the newspaper
and watch the news on television
several times each day
trying to stay current with what is
going on in the world,
though some things I will never understand.
It was just meant to be.
The lights come back on
then go back off two more times.
Maybe on the third try
he will get the lights fixed,
after all, isn’t the third time is the charm,
but as I wait for the next donor,
here I am,
once again,
forever in the dark
in more ways than one.
Duane Anderson lives in La Vista, NE. He is retired after working 37 years at Union Pacific Railroad, and now volunteers as a Donor Ambassador with the American Red Cross on their blood drives, usually volunteering once a week. He has had poems published in The Pangolin Review, Fine Lines, Cholla Needles, Tipton Poetry Journal, Poesis Literary Journal, and several other publications. He is the author of Yes, I Must Admit We Are Neighbors, On the Corner of Walk and Don’t Walk, and The Blood Drives: One Pint Down.