I dreamt I was in Russia. Something had happened—a foreign exchange program “gone bad” as I was not permitted to leave. Worse, they took my guide dog. In dreams when you cry the floodgates open. I wept and wept.
They put me in a building, gave me a little apartment. There was a piano in the lobby. There were a dozen blind people all playing chess.
Dear Lord Byron, may I stay home in my imagination—
I’m not as stoic as you, if they took away your dog
you’d swim the Bosporus, endure conflagrations
all to get him back. I sat before a tuneless piano
and blindly played “Stormy Weather”
with tears running down my face.
The blind chess masters moved their pieces and said nothing.
Planet of the Blind 