John Lee Clark (born 1978) is an American deafblind poet, writer, and activist from Minnesota. He is the author of Suddenly Slow (2008) and Where I Stand: On the Signing Community and My DeafBlind Experience (2014), and the editor of anthologies Deaf American Poetry (2009) and Deaf Lit Extravaganza (2013). Clark was the recipient of a 2020 National Magazine Award. He is a prominent activist in the Protactile movement.
APPROACH
John Lee Clark
I spin around in the middle of the corridor. My cane taps against four elevator doors. I have pressed both the up and down buttons because there is a fifth elevator door. If I tried to tap all five I would come to closing doors too late. Let the fifth door open to a ghost. Let it be confused and close again.
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AT THE HOLIDAY GAS STATION
John Lee Clark
Near the Naked Juices I passed
A man my fingers walking
Across his back he turned and held up
A box said what
Might this be I said oh
You’re tactile too what’s your name
He said William Amos Miller I said
I thought you were born in 1872 he said so
You know who I am yes you’re the man
Who journeyed to the center of Earth
In your mind he smiled on my arm said do
You know that the Earth also journeyed
To the center of my mind I said
I never thought of that he asked
Again about the box I shook it sniffed
Said Mike and Ike is it fruit
He inquired not exactly well
I think I shall have an apple wait
You haven’t paid oh
My money nowadays is no money he pushed
Outside we walked across the ice
To the intersection he made to go across
Wait you can’t go across we have to wait
For help oh help he said crouching
Until our hands touched the cold ground
He said I said we said we see
With our hands I jumped up and said you’re the man