Riding in my father’s car through city lights,
I see one building that’s completely dark:
no white windows, no security floods.
Compelling as a ghost, as if three stories
of hand-made brick and narrow windows
time-travelled back before electricity
when textile mills ruled.
My father tells me it’s a boarding school
for blind children who don’t need lights.
He’s cheerful; they’re saving money.
I’m upset. I don’t think the blind should be
deprived of light because they can’t see.
We’re going home from the ER.
A doctor from India put five stitches in my head
which I had bashed against a coffee table corner,
and I’m afraid of blind children
dropping nickels into secret piggy banks,
counting steps, tracing fingers against dark walls.
First published in Rust + Moth
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