Michael Pogachar

Blind Man Changing Pop Machine

Click hit memorized rows.

Row One is a line.

Row Two is vertical.

Three is the pink juice.

Clink tap chinkle tap.

An unseen routine, this blindness –

this night during day as others see it.

But the remainders of dollars –  

the heft of the quarter and wispy nickel –

are the life of life, are the ways I tell time;

and the landscape of each, like a fingerprint,

is an erosion of stories from the lives of buyers:

the addict, the counsel, the wisher, and here

the coins sound like falling harps.

When I listen closely, I see the professor and student

and janitor searching their pockets for the exchange,

and the Dew, the Diet, the pink juice roll in a process

common as squinting.  And when I look them

in the eyes, I don’t know what they see.

My wife is beautiful.  She has soft brown hair.

I reach into space

with my invisible hand.