The streets are closed with hazard tape,
wrecked by big oil and snaky traffic jams.
The road crew works by geosat to trace
the burnt-out cable where a blackout starts.
Last week, the spigots flooded, storm drains blocked
and now a drop in gigawatts clears the street
and turns the dragon-headed streetlights out.
Crew men strap head LEDs on to help them think
in the electric buzz of town where a forest stood.
It might have been a landscape for a myth,
a quest, romance, a creature killed or kissed.
Now everywhere’s an access point,
the grid and wire where cyberspace begins
and Burger King died when the lights blanked out.
Kitted up in high-end tech and clumsy clothes
the crew consult a heat map from the sky
then face the smoking serpent in the pit.
