she said, write
with your eyes closed.
then the typos are honest;
the grammar innate, misspellings
are just as they should be.
you can't go backward, when you write
with your eyes closed;
can't see what the end of a line looks like or how
long
it is,
can't tell where a comma ought to have been
or even
uses phrases like "ought to have been".
don't let the overeducated, overstimulated, overcompensating
bullying half of your brain
win.
write with your eyes closed, she said:
and with my eyes closed
i can still see the form of her,
the skirts she wears, her hips,
her long, brown eyelashes.
years later i will still remember
the careless flutter of her,
the whisper of her hem along the blackboard.
i write with my eyes closed,
and i see her: perfect, calm, affectionate, for the
college kids eager to please and preening
for the attention of a PhD candidate.
we wrote, for her, silly little poems
that rhymed or didn't and often
said nothing at all, but were packed
with meaning, for her white classroom,
for the cool tiles, for the pale sunlight
in the autumn afternoons.
when i first tried writing with my eyes closed, the thoughts
bounded across my brain--
why can't my hair do that half-curly thing like hers, why
can't i find boots like that--
it takes years of practice to remember
just her shape, or her movement, or her grace,
and to forget the mindful pettiness of youth.
with not so much more age
i see my pettiness now for the companion it is,
and have stopped projecting it onto other people;
in my mind, she remains compassionate, and instructive.
write, with your eyes closed, she said,
inviting the eddies of anxious and fearful and growing minds
to land upon her.