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.