This morning I dropped a plate. Felt childish. I tumbled in memory. Some bad time came over me with my drunk and violent mother raging and no one home but me. Yes no one home but me and uncontainable epigenetic anger over something small.
**
And didn’t I know it? Emmanuel Kant could not save me. The brilliant day could not assuage the return of boyhood trauma. Coffee didn’t do a thing.
**
Went to the basement for awhile. As a child I always went to the basement or attic.
**
I listened to Miles Davis down there in the dark.
ABOUT: Stephen Kuusisto is the author of the memoirs Have Dog, Will Travel; Planet of the Blind (a New York Times “Notable Book of the Year”); and Eavesdropping: A Memoir of Blindness and Listening and of the poetry collections Only Bread, Only Light and Letters to Borges. A graduate of the Iowa Writer’s Workshop and a Fulbright Scholar, he has taught at the University of Iowa, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, and Ohio State University. He currently teaches at Syracuse University where he holds a University Professorship in Disability Studies. He is a frequent speaker in the US and abroad. His website is StephenKuusisto.com.
Have Dog, Will Travel: A Poet’s Journey is now available for pre-order:
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
IndieBound.org
(Photo picturing the cover of Stephen Kuusisto’s new memoir “Have Dog, Will Travel” along with his former guide dogs Nira (top) and Corky, bottom.) Bottom photo by Marion Ettlinger
Planet of the Blind 