from the Uppity Blind Girl poems
 

If I Had a Magic Wand,

I'd turn unwanted prayers into shout-outs
for lonely stars, neglected clouds, cats

clamoring for catnip, the boy who grabbed
my shoulder, keeping me from lurching

into the black hole below the subway platform,
Uppity told Sabrina one night after a woman,

smelling like burnt toast, patted her on the head,
saying, I'm praying for you.  If you repent,

Jesus will open your eyes and wash your sins away.
You'd see the world the Lord has made.

I've sinned with the best of them, Uppity said,
from cheating on a math test in junior high

to forgetting to feed the goldfish to stealing
my sister's boyfriend.  If I had a magic wand,

I'd wash my sins away faster than the latest
Twitter trend.  But my eyes don't need

to be opened.  I see all too well the world
that the Lord has made.  My self-portrait

is all too clear to me.  I'm the Dalai Lama
of Imperfection.  Promise me, Sabrina,

if you pray for me, use your magic wand
to comfort and anoint my blinkered eyes.

Kathi Wolfe is a poet and writer.  Her poetry has appeared in Innisfree Poetry Journal, Gargoyle, Beltway Poetry Quarterly, and other publications.  She was a finalist in the 2007 Pudding House Chapbook competition, and her chapbook Helen Takes the Stage: The Helen Keller Poems was published by Pudding House in 2008.  Wolfe is a contributor to the anthology Beauty Is a Verb: The New Poetry of Disability and a senior writer and columnist for the arts magazine Scene4.  She has read at many venues including the Library of Congress Poetry at Noon Series and appeared on the radio program "The Poet and the Poem."