Dining in the Dark

The chef is blind.  The sommelier is blind.  

We are blind.  The blind headwaiter brings

tonight’s hors d'oeuvres: oysters.  Plump 

and oozing, they could be eyeballs on 

our tongues.  Sauces drip from our lips.  

We daub our chins with linen and touch 

the rims of plates.  We swallow lamb tartare,

sucking our fingers clean as chocolate éclairs 

and espresso arrive.  Warm snifters—cognac

given to us.  “Delicious!” we declare.  After cigars, 

we hear the blind sous-chef yell, “Vie de merde!”

“Silly man, he’s beating his eyes again,” 

the blind maître d’ whispers to us and sings: 

“Fall on your knees!  O hear the angels' voices!

O night divine, O night when Christ was born;

O night divine, O night, O night Divine.”

Curbside, the blind doorman hails a taxi.

As we speed over boulevards, heading for home,

the blind cab driver says it feels like rain.

Braking hard, our driver shouts, “My God!

Get out!”  Abandoned on night streets, we shiver

and fall to our knees.  We hold one other, 

caressing the darkness, squeezing it into our hearts.

The blind cop says, “Move along.”  Irrationally, he says, 

“There is nothing to see here.”  We wander ahead

block after block.  “A bridge,” someone says,

and, yes, we nose the sea, hear gulls’ cries

beneath our feet.  Our breathing quickens

as we arrive upon a pavilion of wet stones

before we endure farther uphill in the dream

that fills the fields.  Up a steep acclivity 

we move into a gathering place suffused 

with voices, laughter, and tolling bells.

Upon a verge above a heaving sea,

we open our shuttered eyes to a bonfire

swallowing air, sparks spiraling through 

darkness.  We ride cinders above dancing 

flames, soaring toward the sky ignited in stars.