To mind him, his way is to take himself
Just out of her small sight and there stay
Till she starts calling; let her call till she
Sounds in pain; and as though in pain, at last,
His answers, each farther, leading her
Down passages, up stairs, with her worry
Hard to swallow as a scarf-end, her pace
A spun child's in a blindfold, to the piled
Dust-coop, trunk- and junk-room at the top
Of all the stairs, where he hides till she sways
Clutching her breath in the very room, then
Behind her slips out, locking the door. His
Laughter down stair after stair she hears
Being forgotten. In the unwashed light,
Lost, she turns among the sheeted mounds
Fingering hems and murmuring, "Where, where
Does it remind me of?" Till someone comes.
ONE-EYE
(In the country of the blind the one-eyed man is king.)
On that vacant day
After kicking and moseying here and there
For some time, he lifted that carpet-corner
His one eyelid, and the dyed light
Leapt at him from all sides like dogs. Also hues
That he had never heard of, in that place
Were bleeding and playing.
Even so, it was
Only at the grazing of light fingers
Over his face, unannounced, and then his
Sight of many mat eyes, paired white
Irises like dried peas looking, that it dawned
'On him: his sidelong idling had found
The country of the blind.
