JUST SAYIN’
From an early age
when people talked
she had trouble following
what they were saying
and didn’t know why.
It was as if
she were blind
and trying to read
Great Expectations
from braille-less pages,
their meaning muted,
dull and dumb
to her voracious
and searching
fingertips. It took
taking up photography
at sixty-five
for her to learn
that she understood
the world best
through pictures,
not words. If only
people spoke in images
then she might have
a fighting chance
at figuring out
what the hell
they were going on about.
But people rarely talk
in pictures. Finally,
at age eighty-five
she realized that she would
have to be the one
to do the drawing.
Last night, we were
on the phone, babbling
about this or that, when
we bumbled our way into
everything I have just told you—about
her mind and how it works.
Have you been drawing pictures
all this time? I asked.
I have, she said.
As we talked further
I swore I could
hear her pencil
in the background
scratching my words
on to a page,
into legible pictures,
pictures she could read
and comprehend.
I smiled, believing that,
my dear friend,
had really and truly
heard me, heard
what I’d been saying.
And maybe,
for the first time, actually
understood me and I her.
