To See

~ An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind ~ Mahatma Ghandi (attributed)

A leg for a leg
Son for son
Daughter after daughter, we

fall into the blind
misery of unmarked graves.

No shoulders
No hands.
Elbow for elbow,
Heart for a heart,
beat by beat. Let us
tear unborn twins
from a mother’s womb
to keep things sym-

metrical.

Ear for an ear—
we are trapped now

in silence, thick like a lead box.
We listen for seven billion
pairs of footsteps that march de-

tached from their legs

toward an abyss without angels.

Wing for wing
    Feather for feather
Let us occupy this space between clouds

pulled by capricious gravity
invisible and urgent like

    memory.

It has been told
that the blind can read
with their fingertips—

Ten
    fingers         d   a   nce
    across

braille mountains, then

    crumple
parchment scrolls,
    light
them to fire, light many fires.
Smoke spirals to
sting dark eyes of new rain

while Earth awakens.
Billions upon billions of
eyes pulse and glimmer on her
moon-drenched seas
between tides of
        re-
       venge.