Savant
Edith Zhao
“Yes. He’s blind,” they mouth, and it’s true.
You see it in the way his eyes wobble limply in their pens,
following the crane of his neck, always tilted up, like the stage lights are calling.
You wonder how he finds the keys with those ten wrinkled wanderers.
Rip Van Winkle fingers. Your brother found them on the faux wood dining table,
the graphite smudged walls, the glass, your bedroom door. Phantom notes from paper and
permanent marker. How does it feel to remember what everyone else has forgotten?
You wonder, as the man carves three tunes from the ivory.
The onlookers can only see one. The conductor, the brass, and the strings hear another,
and despite the mechanical implant upon the plush conch of his ear, you’re certain
he’d hear the third with or without. He lurches to it, within it, like a jungle gym swing.
The kind you leapt off too soon, when you were 12,
momentum a caress of airborne bliss, bubbling and thoughtless,
before dumping you into the wandering grasp of your brother.
You clap with them as the man bows, hand gripping the flickering black frame.
You’ve done this before, at his recital when you were four. Whooping and roaring,
cheers and wailing, stomps and tears trailing behind. A blaring whistle pushed through fingers
and teeth. How else would people react when something incredible has been done to them?
Something almost unbelievable. A blind, half-deaf man revitalizing Bartok’s second concerto.
A savant reconstructing his sister’s convictions, of the diameter of skin that will always stay
rational, of how long a circumference can finally wrap around the unforgotten,
of whether or not to ever clap again for a piano performance.
I clap, of course. For its remarkable beauty, for remarkable blindness.
Edith Zhao is in the class of 2028 and currently plans to major in Environmental Science at SEBS. Her hometown is Edison, New Jersey, and besides writing, she loves the outdoors, climbing, and theater. She writes, “Special thanks to Miguel, for whispering the words that would eventually start this poem. I hope we go to many more concerts together. And to my family: I know I don’t say it enough, but thank you. I hope you’re proud.”