Braille Of An Alliance Poem by Fred Tarr

After six weeks of poetry and fiction at the YWCA
people don't know what they've written
even if premiered on the worksheet.

It's time to quit this stuff and get back to the kitchen,
the job, or the car.
not wanting to face the question,
'what did I get out of this'
they walk to their cars & carry

their laundry of Emperor's Clothes:
torn epaulets of verse,
the wrinkled broadcloth of fiction,
shiny buttons of kudos,
the long sleeve of Biography
trailing in the street.

five months later, found in a recipe book
between Peking Duck and Chicken Tarragon,
three poems: a confession, a dream, -
the last, a letter to the Self unfolding
in breath and hair of skin.

the language like fish in water,
breathless in the still kitchen
lying in the winter deafness of kitchen's light,
the braille of an alliance between countries,

mapping the life of a son or daughter,
the picture of their end,
unexpected but somehow familiar.