Space Heater

April 10 2020

The space heater purrs

by my slippered feet.

On a dull day, in a chilly room,

soothing white-noise

and the bright red glow
of radiant heat.

Warm fuzzy socks

are the secret to happiness.

While misery begins

with cold feet

numb toes

and parchment skin
in the desert dryness of winter.

Because a cold heart

will quickly follow,

then a single-minded brain

preoccupied with fire

and determined to burn it all down,

or whatever it is that's required

for warmth.

Water dropping at Niagara Falls

the great dynamos turning,

transformers stepping-down

and wires flashing power.

Until electricity

from a plug in the wall

appears in my house like magic,

a standard electric socket

and the heat is on.

In a cold vast universe

that is steadily simmering down

to absolute zero

this tiny nimbus of heat

is inconsequential.

But in the small contained space

I inhabit

it is all that matters.

A cool head

and warm feet.

A paean to heat,

and the standard electric socket

that delivers us from freezing

in a miserable spring.

My mind has often does a quick double-take when I hear the expression “space heater”: it's a room heater, so what has this to do with outer space?!! Or was it one of those technological wonders brought to us by the space-age, like Teflon and Tang? Anyway, I thought this might be a good hook for the poem: toying with the double entendre of “space”. Which, after a bit of a detour, I did eventually manage.

Since I live alone, I have the luxury of keeping the house cold (most would use the word freezing for the temperature I prefer!) while my feet stay toasty warm with triple socks and this plug-in portable heater I set beside my chair. I like it cold; but not my feet. Since I like to write about the small everyday things, it seems about time my beloved General Electric / Black and Decker heater got the poem it deserves.

Actually, heaters. They haven't made these in a long time, so just in case, I have a few back-ups: 2^nd or 3^rd hand, scrounged-up and then repaired. This is a good example of how things today are not only shoddily made and impossible to repair, but how the more things change the worse they get: because nothing I can buy now comes close to these old, reliable, and extremely effective appliances.

The other small diurnal thing this poem celebrates is the humble wall socket. They sit down near the baseboards – motionless, barely noticeable, paint matched to the walls – but are invisibly attached to this great infrastructure of power; offer the unimaginable convenience of unlimited electricity; and despite their domestic familiarity, are as potentially lethal as a loaded gun. We take power for granted. Until it goes off.

.