The Blind
       

I was the deep reader of dirt.
Deep reader of the cracks in black shoes,
          heels worn down at an angle.
Deep reader of toy trains and dust.
Nightmares became my sticky friends soaked
          in honey like the corpse of a dun-haired boy—
all shine, even in death.
Deep reader of wildflowers whose seeds I crush
          into the soil with my boots—
five-finger, creeper, bindweed, bloodroot,
jimsonweed that made the teenage girls go blind for a day,
and jewelweed because we are all jewels and weeds,
          also known as touch-me-nots,
though the hummingbird arrives and dives in,
trembling the scene, viridian blur, thrust and entry,
troughs of her bone tongue, insistent needle-beak,
feasting on a golden universe I will never see.

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Copyright © 2020 Hadara Bar-Nadav All rights reserved
from Copper Nickel
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission