June 2017
Roy White
roy.white@gmail.com
roy.white@gmail.com
I am a blind person who lives in Saint Paul, MN with a lovely woman and a handsome dog. In the past I tried to teach English to adult humans and to computers, that is, I taught ESL and wrote language software. My poems have appeared in BOAAT Journal, Tinderbox, and elsewhere, and I blog at lippenheimer.wordpress.com.
Under Heaven
Beneath the fighters (Mustang, Spitfire,
Lightning, Zero) that he hung
by fishing line from the summer-blue
ceiling, beneath the stars
he fixed in alien constellations,
now drab and greenish in the lamplight,
beside the stuffed dog
that looked so sad he couldn’t
kick it out of bed,
he lies reading.
The book promises Good News;
it asks, if the salt loses its flavor,
what he will season it with.
Is this good news? It claims
he too can walk across
the lake, if he believes
completely. He doubts he can
believe completely.
Nothing in the book
matches the shape of the hole,
the hole his grandfather
disappeared into, the hole
that swallows his words, leaving
animal noises behind,
the hole he burrows into
when Mother, sprawled naked
across her big bed, tells him
he is handsome like his dead father.
Closing the book,
he turns out
the light. The stars
of another universe
begin to glow.
Born to Run
She carries her box of stolen hearts
into the February dusk
with the short purposeful strides
of a three-year-old,
out the back door, across the frozen
pond, on snow chalky and bluish
in the fading light, past bare
oaks and maples, to the highway’s edge.
Her big sister’s valentines—are they
loot, offering, obscure ticket
to open country? She will not
remember, will remember only
how the same glittering foil
that first seduced her eye
now catches the headlights
of the approaching truck.
Beneath the fighters (Mustang, Spitfire,
Lightning, Zero) that he hung
by fishing line from the summer-blue
ceiling, beneath the stars
he fixed in alien constellations,
now drab and greenish in the lamplight,
beside the stuffed dog
that looked so sad he couldn’t
kick it out of bed,
he lies reading.
The book promises Good News;
it asks, if the salt loses its flavor,
what he will season it with.
Is this good news? It claims
he too can walk across
the lake, if he believes
completely. He doubts he can
believe completely.
Nothing in the book
matches the shape of the hole,
the hole his grandfather
disappeared into, the hole
that swallows his words, leaving
animal noises behind,
the hole he burrows into
when Mother, sprawled naked
across her big bed, tells him
he is handsome like his dead father.
Closing the book,
he turns out
the light. The stars
of another universe
begin to glow.
Born to Run
She carries her box of stolen hearts
into the February dusk
with the short purposeful strides
of a three-year-old,
out the back door, across the frozen
pond, on snow chalky and bluish
in the fading light, past bare
oaks and maples, to the highway’s edge.
Her big sister’s valentines—are they
loot, offering, obscure ticket
to open country? She will not
remember, will remember only
how the same glittering foil
that first seduced her eye
now catches the headlights
of the approaching truck.
“Born to Run” was first published in Sidewalk Talk (January 2017).
© 2017 Roy White
© 2017 Roy White
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