Impediments

You have yet to live

until you’ve understood

the way to live without.

Mystery’s never answered

without a query.

Note Arthur Conan Doyle’s

punctuation. One key on

his Underwood

worn the most.

 

He said a blind man

sat beside him, read his every

line as he was typing.

Recognized the patterns

of the strokes. The sound of

40 gunshots. Able to solve

each case—before Holmes had

scribbled a shortlist

in his head.

 

You ask me why the

sightless shut their eyes

before they sleep.

I’ve learned to slay

a riddle with a riddle—

 

Barber’s Adagio, for instance—

how the deaf will

well their tears

at the surge of strings,

know of its cracking

pith.

 

An aphonic

says I love you

as she dies—as though she’s

saved her voice

for only this.

 

If you had an hour in

which to run

and not be wheeled?

To whom would you

finally leap?

 

Take the hand

you’d never touch. Not mine,

but the man in Corpus Christi

swaying limply from a bough—

prosthetics which are propped

against the trunk—freely

kicking his stumps

above the earth. Figure

if he really longs for death.

Or craves to dance the

mambo in the only way

that’s left him.

 

 

 

 

Andreas Gripp

November 1, 2026

photograph: Michael Terrace