By Extension

He blisters his hand on the iron she forgot to unplug,
investigates every outlet, detects exactly three more
potential fire hazards, bandages himself 
in the prescribed method. She is not a cautious woman.
He knows when she bathes, she gambles with the extension.
As the stereo slides into the suds, the blue sparks char
her bones black. “They coat such wires to prevent 
electrocution,” she says. It makes him squeamish 
and he smells the smoking nerves, the odor 
of burning rubber. He grits his teeth, 
lifts the left corner of his mouth, squints his right eye,
the customary wince she calls a tic. 
He does this as he watches her cover the patches 
of burst capillaries under her eyes, the blood 
fraying, wiring across her cheeks in purple threads,
as though the skin were scratched from the inside. 
She sees him twitch when she asks for the phone 
and consciously stretches the cord so its doesn’t rub
the wall, short his corroded nerves. 
Beneath the bed, he stores the extra TV cable 
and stereo wire, saves over fourteen feet, 
winds it in loops like rope. 
Scraping off the rubber, 
he divides the strands by color.