My daughter can’t understand
why, when I press the button,
the parking garage door doesn’t budge.

The car stuck. The park too far
for her small legs to walk. These things
happen, I say. It’s no one’s fault.

In the apartment courtyard, the tenants are gathered —
one complains he’s missing the Laker game,
one can’t charge her cell phone,

another’s laptop is dead.

The power,
of course, isn’t the problem — we’re each unprepared

for such sudden loss,

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Tagged: contemporary poetry, elegy, loss, loss poem, Nathan McClain, Nathan McClain poem, poetry, Power Outage Elegy, WaxWing