Nathaniel Underland
Forty-nine years ago, I recall
thinking that those Princeton walls
washed white, that hospital,
reminded me of the first television
advertisement in color, the one
for Pall Malls. A cigarette box sat
inside a CT100 inside that blank room,
and I wished I was outside,
when one and a
half sockless miles
to campus would help me to agree
with myself: the slower I walked,
the lighter, it seemed, I became.
(Other times I'd tell Elsa lies about
regret over the Manhattan Project.)
Well, that RCA sincerely wishes it
could see you now, winded and
weighed down as you approach
a speed too quick to
care about;
the photoelectric effect and I
laugh about it every so often.