The deaf make so much noise,
the blind keep appearing,
those who can’t smell
reek while the tasteless
devour the rotten peach.
Those who can’t touch
skim their fingers
along the razor,
or rubbing up against us
in the street, refuse
rebuke. We hurt others,
ourselves,
the non-sensed sensing.
And yet what we can’t touch
sometimes touches us.
What we can’t under-
stand often crushes.
—
Lois Marie Harrod’s 16th and most recent collection Nightmares of the Minor Poet appeared in June 2016 from Five Oaks. And She Took the Heart (Casa de Cinco Hermanas) appeared in January 2016, Fragments from the Biography of Nemesis (Cherry Grove Press) and the chapbook How Marlene Mae Longs for Truth (Dancing Girl Press) appeared in 2013. The Only Is won the 2012 Tennessee Chapbook Contest (Poems & Plays), and Brief Term, a collection of poems about teachers and teaching was published by Black Buzzard Press, 2011. Cosmogony won the 2010 Hazel Lipa Chapbook (Iowa State). Dodge poet and 3-time recipient of a New Jersey Council on the Arts fellowship, she is widely published in literary journals and online ezines from American Poetry Review to Zone 3 Links to her online work at www.loismarieharrod.org
Zingara Poetry Review 