“Night” by Jean Valentine:
From this night on God let me eat
like that blind child on the train
touching her yogurt as I’d touch a spiderweb
the first morning in the country—sky red—holding the carton and spoon to her mouth
with all her eyeless body, and then
orientally resting, the whole time smiling
a little to one side of straight ahead.
(From Door in the Mountain: New and Selected Poems, 1965-2003 © 2004 by Jean Valentine. Used by permission of Wesleyan University Press. Photo by Jennie Downing)
The Dish 