blindness : poems for the left hand,

 

for Zane Koss,

 

 

I am learning that there are things we can only talk about

underwater                   that there is a struggle in only being able to see

                                                            one of your lifetimes
                                                            at a time

                                                            of always sitting in the same
                                                            seat in the theater

while the congress of you watches.
            Tanya Holtland, Requisite

 

1.

A formulation of the language.

This gentle fog. My right eye, cataracts.
Surgical delay: pandemic,

lacuna. A hardtack
annum.

 

2.

Can see you, there. Resurface,
steel rail. Trace walls with fingertips.

Neither water
nor edge.

Late father’s slippers keep
my toes intact. Two breaks

are enough.

 

3.

The self, is. If you want a picture. Here
is what I believe.

As far as the eye. This
diversity of forms. The absence

is what stands.