Someone Asked Me
By Ann Chiappetta

She humbled herself,
Massaged our hands and feet, taught
Us reflexology, aromatherapy, Yoga

I am a good student, recording my physiological history from
Birth to the present, as if
It mattered To anyone else but me.

What she didn’t know was that I was paralyzed with fear
Unable to move forward, stuck.

She asked me,
What’s holding you back?
As she rubbed lemon and lavender extract into my skin.
Funny, I thought, she sees only what’s strapping me down, not
How far I’ve come,
So I shrugged.
Was she judging me, this Dark One,
This woman who relieved high blood pressure with acupuncture?

What’s holding you back?
This time I got insulted and said,
If going blind means anything, I guess that would be it.

She kept silent and we finished, my frustration flowing out with
The dirty foot bath water.

Years later, I ran into her. I could tell
She scrutinized me. I’d gained weight,
walked with a white cane,
I battled Depression.

Small talk subsiding, she asked,
What happened? You were doing so well.

I shrugged, made eye contact even though I couldn’t even see her face.

I pointed to my white cane, saying,
Going blind sucks.

She said nothing
She did nothing. She acknowledged it not at all.

5/2011

Quiet Fall

After the Accumulation
Crack open the window
Admit the illicit cold
Like a secret lover who
Slips in over the sill

Savor The taste of cold skies
Tooth aching

The brace of damp musk
Burns nostrils like arctic smoke

An ear bent to the opening
Hears chilled perfection
the sound, ice on ice
Sweeps the ground, unreplicable

Brigid’s passionate lips
entice the glass

I close the window
End our embrace
covet the maelstrom from afar

leave the cold fire to
reclaim the world with possessivness born
of Nature and frigid Lore.

2010

Verona
By Ann Chiappetta

I wait for the knock
Once it comes my life will change forever

Since I arrived
For two days and nights

For my entire life until now –

I’ve waited
Unprepared
Searching

I sit on the bed
Wondering how it will feel an hour from now
And go numb with nerves

Question scroll across the marquee of my mind
What will she be like?
Will she like me, learn to love me?

The hot red letters of doubt scroll past
Can she guide me?
Will I be able to trust her?

Then the knock comes and my heart jumps
“Come in.” I say and stay seated
Hoping I can open my heart with as much ease as the door.

I hear her nails click on the floor
I put out a hand, touch her head
She licks me, tail wagging
“Ann, this is Verona.” the trainer says

I don’t really know what to say or how to feel
But her presence soothes me

“Aren’t you a beautiful girl?” I coo as the trainer leaves
We sit on the floor together

The marquee of doubts vanishes
The blocky, red letters fade
Replaced by a message of calm, canine acceptance
Dressed in ebony

She settles her head in my lap
Each stroke of my hand
Strengthens the hope, quiets the fear
The questions dissipate with the knowledge
— Stroke by stroke —
That she is the one who will lead me

Removal

I am unfettered
Glass and wire left behind

forsaken
I am the sightless
I denounce frames and lenses
Like false gods

I am a disiple
fear replaced by loss understood

I am the naked prophet
disrobed
after prolonged oppression

I am baptized by blindness

dipped into the water
Fully submerged
The glasses wash away
Swept aside in the river’s current
Sins relinquished.

Like a prophet, I convert
Yet I rise — a Lazarus
A Believer.

I wonder
If my eyes weren’t taken
would I still be the same?

2008