I’m addicted to travel adapters: two or three-pronged, round or flat pins, straight or on the angle. I keep some in my desk drawer, a few in my bag and one under my pillow, that I stroke to get to sleep. The universal power adapters are my favourite, the prongs move in and out with the switches on the side, like action heroes popping up. You say I’m attracted to their adaptability; that I’m stuck on the one setting. I tell you power sockets are different all over the world and I just want to be ready. We agree that I have a Type A personality but I see that as being most compatible with Canada, China Japan and the USA. When I tell you travel adapters fire up my wanderlust, you stop trying to convert me. On Valentine’s Day you buy me an Apple world travel adapter kit and an Australian plug with six USB ports. You say we can share it on our next trip; you’ll slip your phone plug into the top slot and I can have the other five for my router, charger, iPod, iPhone and bladeless fan. This time I place the adapter between our pillows and wake to find prong marks in both our palms; a kind of globetrotter’s stigmata.

Cassandra Atherton is an award winning prose poet and scholar of prose poetry. She co-wrote Prose Poetry: An Introduction for Princeton UP (forthcoming) and was invited to edit Anthology of Australian Prose Poetry for Melbourne UP (2020).

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