Alice at Seventeen: Like a Blind Child

    One summer afternoon， I learned my body

    like a blind child leaving a walled

    school for the first time， stumbling

    from cool hallways to a world

    dense¹ with scent² and sound，

    pines roaring in the sudden wind

    like a huge chorus of insects.

    I felt the damp socket³ of flowers，

    touched weeds riding the crest⁴

    of a stony⁵ ridge⁶， and the scrubby

    ground cover on low hills.

    Haystacks began to burn，

    smoke rose like sheets of

    translucent⁷ mica⁸. The thick air

    hummed over the stretched wires

    of wheat as I lay in the overgrown field

    listening to the shrieks⁹ of small rabbits

    bounding beneath my skin.