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"Spliced Wire" By Jimmy Santiago Báca

I filled your house with light.
There was warmth in all corners
of the house. My words I gave you
like soft warm toast in early morning.
I brewed your tongue
to a rich dark coffee, and drank
my fill. I turned on the music for you,
playing notes along the crest
of your heart, like birds,
eagles, ravens, owls on rim of red canyon,

I brought reception clear to you,
and made the phone ring at your request,
from Paris or South America,
you could talk to any of the people,
as my words gave them life,
from a child in a boat with his father,
to a prisoner in a concentration camp,
all at your bedside.

And then you turned away, wanted
a larger mansion. I said no. I left you.
The plug pulled out, the house blinked out,
Into a quiet darkness, swallowing wind,
collecting autumn leaves like stamps
between its old boards where they stick.

You say, or carry the thought with you
to comfort you, that faraway somewhere,
lightning knocked down all the power lines.
But no my love, it was I,

pulling the plug. Others will come, plug in,
but often the lights will dim weakly
in storms, the music stop to a drawl,
the warmth shredded by cold drafts.

The Circuitry in "Spliced Wire"

The relationship between a man and a woman could be expressed in many different ways. Jimmy Santiago Báca chose to use a controlling image to symbolize a relationship that went from good to bad. Throughout the poem, Báca used electricity as his controlling image. This clever use of imagery and shift in tone helped portray a relationship between the two genders. Like electricity, the two parts must function together in order to produce an output, and to live in harmony.

At the beginning of the poem, the persona talked about his devotion and love toward his wife. “I filled your house with light./ There was warmth in all corners…” This line could represent the couple’s union. Like a switch being turned on the current flowed into the light bulb, illuminating the home. The love between the couple flowed in them, connecting them like a circuit. A warm, well-lighted home could represent a wonderful and comfortable relationship that neither is corrupted by darkness nor is too cold.

…words I gave you
like soft warm toast in early morning
I brewed your tongue
to a rich dark coffee, and drank my fill.

The author used toast and coffee to represent a breakfast-like comparison. Breakfast is a time where a couple can sit down and enjoy the start of a new day. Generally couples also talk with each other in the mornings. “I brewed your tongue… drank/ my fill” could mean that the husband and wife had good communication with each other. Their words comforted each other and recharged the power between them so that they can run all day long. Just as a battery needs a charger, a husband and wife need each other. The electricity image continued through the last part of stanza one, showing that the persona would do anything in his power to please the one he loved. The choice of birds at the end of the stanza foreshadows what will happen. The husband compared music in the heart of his wife to eagles, ravens and owls on “the ridge of a red canyon.” The red canyon would symbolize the heart and the birds, which normally are not associated with music, portraying a different message. These birds of prey could be eating away at the wife’s heart causing a disruption in the current.

The second stanza continued to show the devotion between the couple. The electricity between them was still strong, but it was beginning to weaken. In this stanza, the persona talked about providing a telephone and a television. These images could represent distractions or resisters in the flow of electricity. As the electricity flowed through the telephone or the television, it lost some of its power to those appliances, thus weakening the flow. To the persona, these items didn’t seem like problems because he was too involved with trying to please her. With a phone, she could keep in contact with anyone and with the television, she could watch many situations unfold. At the end of the stanza the image of a “child in a boat with his father” and “a prisoner in a concentration camp” could have a double meaning. One meaning is that the persona is supporting his statement that he had “brought reception clear to [her].” A deeper meaning is that the two contrasting images represent the two parts of their marriage. At first the couple was very close and could talk about anything with each other, just like a boy and his father on a father/son fishing trip tone in the poem. Then the marriage began to fall apart as the communication between the two became faulty. The prisoner could symbolize the wife’s feelings about the marriage. She felt bound by the marriage with no room to grow. The prisoner could also symbolize the disconnection between the wife and husband.

The tone shifted in the third and fourth stanzas to confirm the permanent disconnection between the couple. Up until this point the persona talked about the good things in the relationship but the third stanza revealed what was really happening. The wife wanted more freedom, a “bigger mansion.” The mansion could represent her need for more things. She felt that her husband wasn’t giving her everything she needed. She felt that she required more “energy” than what her husband was providing her. The husband finally realized that his wife was taking advantage of his generosity and so he left her.

The plug pulled out, the house blinked out,
Into a quiet darkness, swallowing wind,
collecting autumn leaves like stamps
between its old boards where they stick.

The persona pulled the plug and ceased the flow of electricity between them. Without power, the house, their marriage, became deserted and dark. The “swallowing wind” gives a sense of despair, that what is gone will never return. The autumn leaves represent their old happy memories that had been broken. The “house” tried to collect the pieces and put them together again, but they were too fragile like dead leaves.

You say, or carry the thought with you
To comfort you, that faraway somewhere,
lightning knocked down all the power lines.
But no my love, it was I,

The persona’s wife didn’t want to believe that he had been the one to cut off the relationship. She “[carried] the thought” that it was some external, powerful source that shattered the delicate current of their relationship. Blaming the break-up of the marriage on some distant source made the wife feel like she was not responsible. However, the persona told her that it was he who was the one responsible not some phantom unconnected power source.

In the last stanza, the persona said that other men would enter her life and establish a new circuit. Her part of the circuit was weakened, however, because of the divorce between herself and the persona. “But often the lights will dim weakly/ in storms…” When storms or difficulties approach, she would not be able to keep the light as bright as she once could. The incident had affected her emotionally so that she may never be able to have the same connection as she had with the persona. The lines “…the music stop to a drawl,/ the warmth shredded by cold drafts.” portray a winter-like setting which often symbolizes despair, enforcing that the shattered electrical current would never be the same as it was at the beginning of the poem. She will never enjoy the music and the warmth of marriage with the storm of her previous marriage hovering in her mind, reminding her of the frailty of the human connection.

Through the continuous use of electricity as an image, Báca was able to uniquely show the importance of communication in a relationship between a man and a woman. When communication flows freely between two parts the husband and wife complete a circuit and form a strong relationship allowing the electricity to work wonders. Without communication, any relationship is as faulty as a broken circuit.