When I was a child, I could blur the world
with my telescope ocular muscles: make shapes
softer and pastel. It’s harder to cinch things now.
I’m letting my lavender impatiens die
slowly in their steel boxes and clay pots—
I don’t want to care for them
on the cusp of fall. I don’t want to watch
their long deaths, either. My cat Maria
can’t abide my leaving her even for an hour,
will look me in the eye and shit on my bed.
I learned today that not all people can blur things
with their eyes—they must look and look until
they cry or look away. I bring my white spread
to Sunshine Express Laundry, watch the spin,
the spiral. My mother told me lies about so much.
She told me my face could freeze: a grimace, a pout,
cross-eyes. She feared dirt and poverty, feared our clothes
touching someone else’s. I’d planted impatiens
too shallow: all the roots exposed, thick, snake-
like. I can still let in the tiniest bit of light.
See? It’s fading into fall, sooner each day.
—Jennifer Martelli (NonBinary Review)