Kristina England

GIRL SENT AWAY, FORCED TO WEAR DARK GLASSES

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There are no photos of her as a kid.
Perhaps Perkins School for the Blind
has an album with her face in it,
but I doubt she is smiling,
diagnosed legally blind at birth,
no pupils, no way to dilate,
to distinguish distance nor
shades of darkness and light.

Her mother, ashamed, confused,
did not visit her once.
Her father, quiet, non-confrontational,
picked her up on a weekend here or there,
brought her home to see sis and mum.
Her mum would cover her eyes in public,
not to protect the little girl,
but to protect something inside herself.

I know this little girl. I know her.
She is my mother over forty years later,
shades of resentment wrinkling her face,
never quite sure she can trust her own daughters,
the word commitment some anomaly
to hold onto, to grip, to fasten
the tie between us too tight,
our bodies stumbling together
in the darkness, in the distance,
no clear end in sight.

Kristina England resides in Worcester, Massachusetts. Her poetry and fiction is published or forthcoming at Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, Gargoyle, New Verse News, Poetry24, and other magazines. Her first chapbook of short stories, Stanley Stanley's Investigative Services and Other Mysteries, is due out in 2014. For more on her writing, visit http://kristinaengland.blogspot.com/ .