Seeing Red––A Pedagogy of Parallax: An Epistolary Bildungsroman o ...

the negative, not run away, see it out to the end? Where is the end? Can I make myself draw the line when I'm too afraid to? Can I sever my own limb to release myself like the Canadian hiker who saved himself after being trapped for seven days, his hand pinched under a fallen boulder? No, I am not strong. I do not know how to write new stories by myself. How do I love when I am already in love?

Have you read “Grasshopper,” a poem by Jeanne Murray Walker (2004)? She writes about the grasshopper courageously biting off his broken leg so the new leg can replace it. You can read it at: http://www.versedaily.org/grasshopper.shtml. Here's my response to that poem.

Grasshopper's Deaf Skin Cannot Love Everyone Happily Ever After

I do not fall I cannot fall I must not fall
like you do, open smiles twinkling eyes open vulnerability
easily and down the nape, bristling skin

I hold tight, resist and wrestle an accident wrecked
roll this confusion around in my hands
try to still the bifurcated self at neck
but the faceless juggler will not need my cries
finger white grips and callous hands holding
holding to prevent the balls from hatching

I hear the bodies calling fluid raw heat
my own and the other
screeching with delirium
strong wrapped wings