At Winter Solstice, Iowa City

I listen for the footsteps
Of my dogs:

Little taps from their via sacra.
When I hear them on the stairs

I know the happiness
Of Vivaldi!

Borges, if only they'd given you a dog
You'd have known

Blindness stands for nothing.
—Do not concern yourself with the whole.
Stephen Kuusisto, "At Winter Solstice" from Letters to Borges.  Copyright © 2013 by Stephen Kuusisto.  Reprinted by permission of Copper Canyon Press, www.coppercanyonpress.org.
Source: Letters to Borges (Copper Canyon Press, 2013)
More Poems by Stephen Kuusisto