“The future lies in hydrogen, you see:
the age of airships! Science! Industry!
I’ve even heard they’re trying to devise
some way its particles could weaponize—
ah Fräulein, yes, I’ll have a cigarette—
Herr Doctor Braun says these will kill me yet;
a learned man, but I don’t think he’s right.”
[Pats both his pockets] “Do you have a light?”
————

Kelly Scott Franklin’s students appreciate his humor because they are a captive audience and want to get good grades. His essays, poems, translations, and reviews have appeared in Able Muse, Literary Matters, Driftwood Press Literary Magazine, Light Poetry Magazine, Commonweal Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, and elsewhere. He teaches what one of his children refers to as “Boring Grownup Books” at Hillsdale College. He also plays the ukulele.