John Grey
The dark is after your eyes,
your once sharp mind.
People no longer know
how to represent themselves
in your presence.
You shake your head.
Their faces
aren’t good enough
for recognition.
I must act quickly
if any of your light
is to be saved.
So I take hold of your wheelchair,
push you in a hundred directions:
to the sound of crashing surf,
garden bird song,
busy shopping streets,
even into that embracing world
of the soap opera.
I turn you in directions
you once would have turned
on your own.
I move you the distances
you long ago managed
in half the time.
And the silence has come
for your voice, your breath,
the beating of your heart.
I make a sound on your behalf,
the creak of the surface,
the rattle of the wheels.
John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in New World Writing, North Dakota Quarterly and Lost Pilots. Latest books, ”Between Two Fires”, “Covert” and “Memory Outside The Head” are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in California Quarterly, Seventh Quarry, La Presa and Doubly Mad.