Kathi WolfeTAMBOURINEListen to the audio version.A friend says I write what I hear:This news, match slapping kindling, sets my ears on fire. Its tambourine flames zap my funhouse eyes open. They had been for so long so far from the light — huddled against the cold of the night. Now, my decrepit but loyal peepers are swept off their feet. They hear the dragons snap, the Furies frown. Their fingers craftily write it down. * * * ONE DAY IF I'M LUCKY,Listen to the audio version.do-gooders, lusting to cureme, won't ogle my blind, bad-ass eyes, as I stand in line at the coffee cart, where I want my caffeine fix, not their healing. Strangers won't stare as if I'm an exotic bird. I won't be asked to sing like Stevie Wonder, or why I dare to kiss a girl at a bar when I should be safely at home reading a Braille Bible, drinking warm milk. While wearing my black silk jacket and red stilettos, I'll dance with my lady. With no warm milk or Braille Bible in sight, we'll sashay before the Blindness god. * * * WHAT I SAW*Listen to the audio version.Putting my jacket on the coatrackin our chalk-smelling school room, I saw only the orange warmth of our teacher Mrs. Smith's voice, the yellow blur of Jimmy's pencil, white shapes (snowflakes?) falling against the window. My funhouse eyes didn't see much. I wanted to see more – Jane's tangly red hair, Frankie's green-fingered monster socks – until the black shape swirled across my desk, slimier than any worm. Creepier than any roach. It's a swastika for your Jew daddy, Johnny said. Then, I didn't want to see anything any more.
*"What I Saw" is published in Love and Kumquats: New and Selected Poems forthcoming in fall 2019 from BrickHouse Books.
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