by Carolyn Creed
Twice in a single week,
I set them off--beep
and blare klaxoned the air--
and I responded, panicky.
In the first instance,
burnt toast-edges acrid,
I opened the door
on fresh gusts of winter,
crazily waved a big book
beneath the mad sensor,
till accusation ceased.
As the second alarm
shrilled its shouts of warning,
a more surefire solution
had to be found--sound
squawked in a small
schoolhouse, and how was I
to crank it down? Not I,
but my frown-faced colleague
("Lost the code?"), shut it off,
and all bawls calmed, though
heart-thumps carried on.
The anxious mission
of achieving silenced sirens
affected nothing but nerves,
settled soon from false alarms.