“View from My Long Beach Study” by C.E. Chaffin

Pan left: they’ve painted the Bekins building yellow.

Pan right: blinds shield my eyes from the ground zero

flash of sun on sea.

Divines maintain

we must be blind to see. I’d part these blinds

to scan the blinding sea if Jesus

meant that literally, but I know

better than to pluck a blood-fed eye.

Poets have gone blind but none

began so; if stricken, I’d spout twenty lines a day,

like Milton, composed in bitter peace

against my frenzied need to see my words.

I don’t trust ear and mind alone;

I prefer paper over stone. I write no laws,

my work can all be burned.