Hope is Wearing Mittens Signing its Message to the Blind

Oct 19, 2008 by Jeff Brown

Her squirms of protest accompany
the morning alarm. Stumbling to the
community wash she takes on
Thumbs and Butternut, tenants
that send dogs scurrying into the
street, hitting themselves with
newspapers to discourage pursuit.

She once asked the ventriloquist next
door for a little relief from defective
life, so he put 13C on his lap and
gave it the timbre of high rent.

Here dirt cleans itself on passersby.
Pink neon glows, tries to bathe the
street, only to draw back–like
peers from an eight-grader oozing
with too much brain and forehead,
and zip on the varsity letter potential.

“Gwenda the good witch don’t come down here.
Never seen Sante or the April Bunny either. So wadaya spect?”
Slithers Billy Tooth, as he shakes down the naked cabby.

At Ninth and Elm she spots the soft-shell cockroach
that lives in the church basement.

On Hanover she stumbles over Ham Sandwich and
Pig in a Blanket, then they steal her lunch.

There is great commotion out back of Ratellas,
outside the kitchen: nobody wants to
give up their place in line to the new kid;
The one with two good fists,
fresh gauze and tape over his eyes.

There really is something she wants,
knows, needs . . .
She’d felt it watching one of those dopey shows,
(the people with half hour problems),
in the final minute when the dumb
remarkably see.
That light in their eyes . . .

that is to covet.

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Jeff is a Motivation, Self-Improvement, and Success expert and can be found at SelfGrowth.com. He has written 100’s of essays and articles; over 50 poems; and several books: At Amazon.com, you can find Black Body Radiation and the Ultraviolet Catastrophe, a novel to inspire young adults and the young at heart. For more inspiration, get his collection of poems, To Die at the Age of Man at Lulu dot com. Coming soon: Give and Grow Yourself Rich (July, 2008); Education is a Waste of Time, (early 2009); and a children’s novella The Search for Adriana (late 2008). Currently, he teaches writing and owns Inner Projection, a self-improvement business.