Arthur (Boo) Radley Speaks
By Barbara Siegel Carlson
It was myself I wanted to cut loose
from the rope like the one
round the neck of a man
swaying from a branch.
I couldn’t breathe when I saw
what runs from a body.
Maybe I carved the soap dolls
to wash the blood from my own hands.
But everyone wears a hard
shell of a costume,
and sometimes it saves you.
How do you wash the blindness
from a man’s eyes? I couldn’t speak
because truth has no color or voice,
but it melts like soap and grows clear
in the darkness between the walls,
until the walls disappear.
Copyright © 2020 by Barbara Siegel Carlson.