Blind
Because you can see
it is clear to you
how important it is
to watch where you’re going—
the curb, the sudden street
six inches below your next step.
And you wouldn’t have heard it
in time to duck—
that Frisbee whizzing toward your ear—
but your eyes, like magic,
absorb the necessary light and shadows,
the motion instructing you to step aside.
As you look ahead,
focused on the colorful horizon,
an image of your friend appears in your mind.
Yesterday, she just got the news. Bad.
Not a hope in sight.
They’ll have to go, the doctor said.
both of them—
the two bright planets
dying like stars,
an explosion of cancer
before the permanence of dark.
Blind. A life sentence.
Once, when your vocabulary was incomplete
it was only a word that followed love is….
DeMaris Gaunt
11-8-11
