It’s almost too easy to see in the dark / when you can’t see at all in the first place. / The moon blinking without eyes. / You can feel the granular refraction / of light in the white space of your eyes, / engraved as raised dots. Each speck as / its own spotlight. It’s almost too unreal, / how your fingers pirouette across / braille books, each bump an aching / for possibility. What could have been. / Outside, you can hear the next-door / neighbor blasting party tunes. / It’s interrupting your ballet repertoire. / Already, all of the once-raised dots / have faded from these pages. Now, / a memorial for those worn out hands, / those untouched eyes. You grope for / the light switch and can’t tell if / it’s already on. Even under the halogen / light bulb, you are spiralling on the same dot.
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Jessica Kim is a disabled poet from California. A two-time 2021 Pushcart nominee, her work appears or is forthcoming in Wildness, Diode, Cosmonauts Avenue, Grain, Longleaf, Glass, and more. She is the founding editor of The Lumiere Review. Find her on Twitter @jessiicable.