Dear Dad,
In the corner of the room I inhabit a corner of your eye.
Through the window my eyes rove from room to room spying on the family across 77th. Fish and green rooms and red blinds. Someone’s in the red room playing the piano with a boy.
I cannot hear through their glass. Wallpaper glitters huskily. Gold pans across rooms looking, looking. Here, fruit on the table, still.
I want to be an ambulance siren but am a closed mouth. I feel things move inside like pine needles and beetles or maybe marbles. Last night I tried to sleepwalk but wet the bed. Tears only dry by morning.
I grade listening by your snoring. I can count even up to a hundred while I wait. The sun gathers on my pajamas and thickens.
The sun is passing but not through me, I am transparent. When I unlock the door there is no echo in hallway C. Bolts turn beneath your hearing.
I will try to unlearn dust. I will begin by being clean. Snap shades, startle pigeons. Banish the scratchy sound playing over and over in my head. I can make believe.
All I really want is to disturb.
JULIE EBIN has recently published poems in Touch: The Journal of Healing (forthcoming), Off the Coast, Coin Flip Shuffle, and Getting Bi. She is intrigued by the psychological and relational effects of illness and disability. Julie enjoys writing with children and dancing, among other pursuits.
