Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

Poetry Library Southbank Centre - The Poetry Library housing the Arts Council Collection at Southbank Centre

« Previous item
Contents of this issue
Next item »

John Kay

print this page

The whites of your eyes

It was my accent, you see, pure Caribbean, it made me
almost forget you couldn’t see. You heard it outside the post office,

and waved your white wand, casually demanding that I
whisked you, and your pension, magically across the street.

You told me how lucky I was to be here, how privileged, and
how it wasn’t my fault, how I wasn’t to worry, my kind would catch

up in the end, fortunately for you I wasn’t one of those who
stole pensions from the blind. Had I been here long?  Been educated maybe?

After I’d had just so much of your white stick, I should have
rammed it down your white throat, or painted it a nice shade of

chocolate brown, or snapped it and left you waving, or drowning,
in the middle of the road.  But I did nothing, said nothing, I

got you safely to the other side and let you go, blindly on your way, your picture of me, pitifully intact, behind the whites of your eyes.

Page(s) 57

Back to top