Something in My Eye

The world is writ in Braille but our hands
are tied behind our backs with finest cashmere.
And yet somehow we know:

Rivers wait for no one, mountains do not mourn,
there are no circles under the eyes of the ancient
hills nor will the silent canyon remember

when you walked it. Between spank and breath
the orchid of mortality is delivered, an unsigned
card pinned to the stem, the memory

of a kiss. The world is repeatedly stained
with ink spilled at twilight. When even dumb
cities bloom without regret like gladiolus

before they wither, what does it mean to wear
flesh, to learn the name of the dark
birds assembled on the wire like beads

on a rosary, time always running out
like a lover sprinting for the bus, the first

drops of 10,000-year-old rain just beginning
to darken the lapel of his fine woolen coat.

Copyright © 2007 Allison Smythe All rights reserved
from the Southern Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission