A Paper Lightning Bolt

Someone has tacked a paper cutout

of a lightning bolt to the sky.

One of those zigzag cartoons

that Thor likes to chuck at the earth.

No, it doesn’t look like real lightning,

but I wonder how the cartoonist

got it up there, how it’s fastened

to the filmy and fickle sky.

You think it fell from a comet

and somehow stuck into place

through an obscure natural process

science has yet to describe.

But looking through binoculars

I can clearly see that it’s paper

rippling in a stratospheric wind.

We agree it’s not an omen but

perhaps a campaign poster

for a candidate running for

some minor public office

like fence viewer or dog warden.

Other people are looking up.

A woman panics, fears the hand

of God is working against us.

But God doesn’t bother with paper

silhouettes when he can wield

the real thing with deadly effect.

We sip our latte outdoors because

the pandemic still prevails.

The first good thunderstorm

will pulp that phony lightning bolt

in a gust of cosmic laughter

we’ll hear even if asleep.

No one should be worried,

but I wonder who owns a ladder

tall enough to reach all that sky

and whether he’d lend it to me.