Gary Kissick
What I Like About a Blindman
What I like about a blindman is
you can stare him right in the eye,
the only extinguished light
by which we see.
And if you freeze, breathing quietly through the nose,
you can smell the dust of that eraser
perpetually voiding his face. It's what
gives him his pallor. Then you can
trip him. Trip him and run away.
And if a blindman also suffers
that disease that deadens nerves,
you can creep to his bed at midnight,
touch those eyes so disturbing by daylight,
those cellar doors left open,
unfinished tomes of blank verse,
heartless poems.
And if that succeeds, if that goes so well
your fingers come away reeking of darkness,
perhaps you can
pass your hand before your face
and not be born at all.
