House on Fire

The smoke detector in our attic is beeping.

We replaced the battery,
but the bleeping

thing keeps on chirping
intermittently. Oddly,
the blesséd thing stops beeping

for about six hours after we press the bleeping
Reset button, which causes
a brief whistle, followed by piercing

silence, knowing our sleeping
will be rudely
interrupted again in a few hours by that beeping.

I looked on Google, hoping
to get a clue, and, apparently,
the only thing to do is replace whole bleeping

gadget if it’s exceeding
ten years in age. We could blow dust out of it
with compressed air, but I’m losing
confidence. I want to set my bleeping . . .