Snow on the bridge over the Wabash today,
and bright sun. I've been told
I need to be careful of burning out
the last of the tiny reflective cells
at the back of my eyes,
that blue light
is the most dangerous.
Blue being, of course, my favorite color.
I close my eyes, promise myself
that I will do this walk to the other side
blind. When I was seven, my mother
read me the books about Laura Ingalls Wilder
growing up when America was wilder,
too. When her sister Mary
got scarlet fever and her vision
dimmed, then gave out completely,
I took the book from my mother's hands,
snapped it shut.
No more, I said. This was before
my own darkness began to bloom,
small at first but ever opening outwards.
Before faces became impossible to read,
before I learned to set a vague
gaze in the direction I think
eyes might be. Before navy and black
became one, then brown and purple.
Before staircases frightened me.
Before I started to pretend
I never liked drawing anyway.
Or driving. Before even my dreams
became blurry, indistinct.
And now I am practicing walking like Mary
must have, foot in front of foot,
and it's like walking a room of perfect
white, featureless and infinite, a room
I can't trust, a room of invisible solids
and displaced sounds. The wind,
or perhaps a truck. My own shuffling
footsteps, disturbing creaking snow.
My breath hanging moist
against my lips. Somewhere
the steps, the edge
of the bridge, the river
moving cold and slow.