Seeing Eyes

By | 1 November 2019

Pretending I can’t find my bi yoo bibioo
simply because she has covered her eyes
gives her as much joy as the silly faces
I sometimes pull. Out of the 43 facial muscles
I should have, I stretch, contract, contort,

conjure shapes that get the desired reaction.

But when she hides she is in control – even
ridicules me for not seeing her: I’m right
here, Daddy,
she screams, then runs to hug me.
Already the time is coming when the trick will be

too old. I know so well how soon our pleasures go.

I recall hiding from my grandma. Her dark eyes
imprisoned behind cataracts, I was always stunned
how easily she found me. She didn’t even move;
she just pointed, and my reaction was always – How?

Some quality of those hours with her is how I see God:

something of her certainty that I had my late father’s
physiognomy just from the sound of my voice; how
she hugged this inherited body, this borrowed
shape and hue, close to her, cradled its shifting
face, seeing and loving a grandchild with no eyes.

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