The Things We See

Some things are not beautiful, but many things are

“Love is blind” I heard the blind man say. The irony not lost on his sheepish grin.

I pause to wonder about things a seeing man like myself sees that I’d rather not.

The housewife folding laundry while her husband undresses another. A child with cancer.

Old men forgetting the best of themselves. Old women forgetting old men.

Bullet casings alongside finger paintings strung up in a classroom marked with

caution tape. Thoughts and prayers offered by men who don’t pray or think.

No one would wish to be blind. No one would risk not seeing cardinals flirting in a willow tree.

No one would choose to not see a Carolina sunset. The burden of describing indescribable things

to those who can only listen; can only smell things like fudge brownies in the oven.

Fresh-cut grass in late spring. The uncertainty- is that a fragrant gardenia or a lover’s perfume?

I wore my own grin, foolishly, realizing soon after he couldn’t see it. I knew he had gotten over

the hurt of not seeing the smile of a granddaughter. He refuses to live in a world of pity.

I considered the benefits of blindness, few as they may be. The visually impaired man didn’t see the angry mother of three

slap her child in the grocery store parking lot. Her swelling rage. No, he only heard it.