blindingly (poem)

blindingly

who looked back in hindsight

and found the vista blank

unable to imagine bending time

to shop the 1960s Christmas

Come a better-raised child, bright

to the dawn of December 31, 1999

The imperatives

to stray a little farther on

or in memory alone, in mind

Go back, in a cower from the provocateur’s whip

Wait for an iceberg, dressed to the nines

She wears a massive coat of mink

Chases her hand after a pen

Whose sinister penchant is skittering starboard

As though the tilt of the deck just whispered

Now but not soon

What is she doing, otherwise, on this ship?

Force-reading the advertisement again

A smartly-crafted mystery with a likable hero

Are you smartly-crafted yourself, are you a look?

Are you, or is your dialogue, believable

Are you dressed to sail down a rabbit hole

As the wrong character in the wrong book

no one here drawn other than to charm

Toys and pets, aren’t they, only that?

a pocket watch drops from a fat stuffed paw

a button-eye hangs by a raveling thread

We are needled into the dark arcade

We find crawling the bricks where the fallen are laid

the very old and the very blind

The Culture

(2025, Stephanie Foster)