Holes in Houses

I was trying to think of what it was 
I had heard about woodpeckers 

pecking on the sides of houses
and said they sensed 

the electromagnetic field 
of all the wiring in a home 
          
and how it confused their senses 
and he looked at me like I had 

three heads or three extra holes 
in my head and it was only later,

many days later, that I remembered,
far too late to salvage 

his deteriorating opinion of my intellect, 
that it was the hum of the wiring 

that they heard or felt in the cavities 
of their heads and mistook for the activities
 
of termites and weevils making holes 
in the wood and I felt like twice the fool 

for I knew it hadn't sounded right 
when I told it first, about the 

electromagnetism.  I could as well have 
gone and told him, “That's why I line 

all my hats with foil, you know—
to keep the woodpeckers out!”