- Louis Braille, and: John Chapman
Louis Braille
1809-1852
The book opensyour hand touching the pagefinds the first word and begins to read how you stabbed
at a scrap of leatherwith your father's awl itjumped piercing your eye a tragedy for one little boy
it says herebut a boon for mankind the wounditched and you rubbed the infection into your good eye
extending your armtouching the lumpy relief mapat the Institute for the Young Blind their bright pupil
bird-bonedyour high spiritual foreheadand small cough tracking the winding course of the Seine
into the Alpsyou traced the raised bumpsof your letters made in the dark while the others slept
like a rashon the page your fingers flyinggasping on the stair your death passed without notice
later exhumedand reburied in the Pantheonexcept for the bones of your hands sealed in a small urn. [End Page 94]
John Chapman
1774-1845
The human murmurhear it? What were they sayingtheir voices burbling what seemed to be the angel horde
of Emanuel Swedenborgthe dead are like us only happieryour father a Minuteman gone to engage the enemy at Lexington
your mother freezingand sweating the bough about to breakinto flower the larder dwindling the farm foreclosed gazing
West you sawhell in the seething settlementswhat we might become—treeless fruitless your mother dead
in appletimeyour head crushed by the kickof a horse the doctor drilled and drained your swollen skull
into a pana scar across your eye leaving yousleepless troubled by dreams hearing the speech of animals
you set offwhistling over the snow freeing yourselfof your hat and coat barefoot ridiculous unhinged with your
battered Biblea sack of seeds and a mushpoton your head a boy (the story goes) shouting in the woods. [End Page 95]
John Witte's poems in this issue are part of his collection Second Nature, forthcoming from the University of Washington Press in 2008. His last book was The Hurtling (Orchises).