Late Night Radio

They made real radios back then,
half as big as refrigerators.

The boy's father put theirs where the wood stove had been,
not moving the circle of chairs.
Evenings, they would forget,
and stretch out their hands
to feel the warmth of that primitive beast
now caged in the cellar.

Sometimes the boy would wake in the night
to the orange glow of tubes,
his father snoring,
the sound of voices.

During the summer, it might be baseball;
on Sunday, Reverend Ike
or some other indulgence peddler
on WWVA, Wheeling, West Virginia;
another time, another station,
maybe Bach,
maybe The Shadow,
maybe just the star spangled end
of the broadcast day.

Some nights the boy would hear only
the crackling of electronic fire;
just enough to keep the wolves at bay,
to keep snakes from slithering under his bed,
to keep his dresser from becoming a dragon.

360 degrees and 30 years later,
little has changed.
The radio is plastic, smaller,
and the boy who lay awake at night
is now the father who falls asleep
halfway through the News from Lake Wobegon.