Chitra Ganesh, How to Assemble a Flying Car (detail), 2018, linocut on tan BFK Rives. Courtesy of the artist & Durham Press.
Prophet
how could he be so certain
of what he saw ahead
he turned
brushed back the heavy hair
and pushed a finger
into his empty socket saying
this eye
could not be trusted
it would roll everywhere
never lightly wholly on what it passed
its strayings unbridled
it tore itself
watching men deny its sight
this other
as he took it out
and cupped the movement in his hand
does not see
except as i throw it
down the smoke of road
and then follow
blind with dust
the only eye i possess.
Wladyslaw Cieszynsky is a Teaching Assistant in the writing program at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. In the last year, he has had poems in the Cottonwood Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, Quartet and many others. (updated 1976)