A man told a story.
He was a watcher of women’s eyes.
In the midnight bar he asked a stranger,
“Why wear shades in this half-lit place?”
She felt for his hand, pulled it
below the counter. A stein
winked in a beam of light.
He thought, “She is a prostitute.”
She directed his hand downward
to a tuft of coarse hair, a warm mound
that stirred a little.
“This is Pilot,” she told him,
“who guides me with pure intent
through my unseen city.”
He raised her hand to his lips.
He said, “Forgive me.
I too need Pilot to lead me
around barriers I see too late.”
He envied their trust, their closeness,
issuing into the flash and glare
of her sightless city.
The man who told the story
prided himself on perceiving
from a woman’s eyes
her mood, her purposes, and how if he wished
he could control her. Now, he said,
he walked out into the night
aware of a strange helplessness,
a need for the blind woman.
“Rut I had learned only
the dog’s name,” he said.