Removal

I am unfettered
Glass and wire left behind

forsaken
I am the sightless
I denounce frames and lenses
Like false gods

I am a disiple
fear replaced by loss understood

I am the naked prophet
disrobed
after prolonged oppression

I am baptized by blindness

dipped into the water
Fully submerged
The glasses wash away
Swept aside in the river’s current
Sins relinquished.

Like a prophet, I convert
Yet I rise — a Lazarus
A Believer.

I wonder
If my eyes weren’t taken
would I still be the same?

2008