It’s okay if the world goes with Venetian;
Who cares what Italians don’t see?–
Or with Man’s Bluff (a temporary problem
Healed by shrieks and cheating)–or with date:
Three hours of squirming repaid by laughs for years.
But when an old woman, already deaf,
Wakes from a night of headaches, and the dark
Won’t disappear–when doctors call like tedious
Birds, “If only…” up and down hospital halls–
When, long-distance, I hear her say, “Don’t worry.
Honey, I’ll be fine,” is it a wonder
If my mind speeds down blind alleys?
If the adage “Love is blind” has never seemed
So true? If, in a flash of blinding light
I see Justice drop her scales, yank off
Her blindfold, stand revealed–a monster-god
With spidery arms and a mouth like a black hole–
While I leap, ant-sized, at her feet, blinded
By tears, raging blindly as, sense by sense,
My mother is sucked away?
