University Braille

here I am, half-drunk on cheap wine and the stink of the subway,
watching this blind chick across the aisle,
her fingers crawling over some goddamn textbook like it’s a lover’s back.

those pages are slick, white, gleaming under the sick fluorescent lights,
little bumps raised up just enough for her to feel the secrets—
technical diagrams, chemistry shit, hydrocarbons, whatever the hell.

her eyes are open but dead, red-rimmed,
twitching like they’re trying to cry but gave up years ago.

soft hands, pale, sliding slow,
butane, methane, propane—
ethanol, methanol—

me, I’m just sucking on a warm beer in a paper bag,
thinking how the world keeps inventing new ways to be cruel.
she’s in love with molecules I’d piss on,
and I’m in love with nothing but the next stop
where I can get off and forget I ever saw her.

the train rattles like a dying man’s lungs,
and her fingers keep moving,
caressing the names of things that burn.

those tiny black bumps,
poison spelled out on paper,
braille pornography