Lucie Winborne

VIEW, INTERRUPTED

On July 19, 1933, Blanche Barrow, a short-term member of Bonnie and Clyde's gang, was wounded in a shootout in Platte City, Missouri, and permanently blinded in her left eye. Her husband, Buck, died five days later from his injuries.


I am Blanche's eye. Note-taker. Recorder
of 22 years. But I cannot speak
today.

Once, through the widened tunnel of my pupil,
days flew like startled birds. Miles of mud-drenched road,
the flash of gun bores raised in haste. Cards shuffled
on a table. Abandoned papers, fluttering. Blue sea upon sand,
a white dog's wagging tail.

How pure, those shards of shattered window, sparking
prisms on their way to me.

Dead men sleep beneath my lid, lost to dreams and home.

I am Blanche's eye. Note-taker. Recorder
of 22 years.

But I cannot speak today.


Lucie reads "View, Interrupted":



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Lucie confesses: "When Travis Tritt released a song called 'Modern Day Bonnie and Clyde,' with a video featuring Billy Bob Thornton, a poem idea popped into my head. It was never completed, but sparked another idea—an entire collection devoted to the law-breaking pair. "View, Interrupted" became that planned collection's first offering."

LUCIE WINBORNE is a receptionist/administrative assistant by day and a freelance writer, copyeditor, and proofreader by night in sunny Central Florida. Her first poetry collection, The Soundness of Broken Pieces, was published by Middle Island Press in 2013 and she has been known to blog at Postcards From My Head. She welcomes visitors at her website, http://bluetypewriter.com/.