Elsewhere

I witness the birth of Evie,
born with split lips,
cleft palate,
blue and acidotic,
sick as sick can be.
Can she hear, can she think, can she see?
We wait for answers.
We witness New York.
Beneath the rubble
split lips,
cleft palate,
sliced by metal
not genetic irony.
Blue and mangled bodies,
sick as sick can be,
they cannot hear, they cannot think
and never will they see
again.
I have smaller fish to fry.
Our baby three weeks old
future untold,
can she hear, can she think, can she see?
I cannot weep at distant carnage,
grief has scoured my tear ducts dry as ice
but
No.....
now the salt water streams and billows down my face.
I cry again for those........
Elsewhere.

Braille

Between the Braille bumps in your book
lies the beauty of the word.
The beauty of the world
enshrined in blip and indentation.

Your vision,
blurred and bleary,
transports you through universal vistas,
awesome and magnificent.

Your damaged ears,
filled with the strangeness of sound,
seek out meaning from the din
fuel solace from within.

As one book opens
another is closed
chapter upon chapter.

Insect

She slid across the kitchen floor
proud
head up
shuffling on her bottom
bumping into things
until she found the woodlouse.
She picked it up
precisely.
She can see an insect.

We cried