Glasses
It comes to this: of
whatever sort it is,
it must be “lit with
piercing glances into the life of things”;
it must acknowledge the
spiritual forces which have made it.
Marianne
Moore
“When I
Buy Pictures”
Until I hold them up
to the light and far away
from my face I really can’t tell
how dirty they are
how smudged with the hike
into the falls and back out
how dusted with groceries meat
papaya cheese, how feeding this
(but not in an order)to the other
three at the table would seem
a sweet delight to provide
to prepare to prophet
their night through to morning
what is it, seeing at a distance
of lens to nose, those limp
prints of the hours, too close
to notice?
Or is it distance
I survive only because too far
is a blur, is a horn hassling fog
is a photograph across the room
I can’t see even up close
or even squeeze a memory of.
There are so many today.
How is it we have any breath at all?
I mean think:
how still the children had to sit
all those years ago and pull off
the glee, pull off that caught
in a pause of thought. It’s so
honest a light a parasite
would bang against it concussed
and fall to the ground
holding its head. I get the spirit
bit though.
When I breathe out some
of my sour tongue, when it
levitates above the foggy lenses
and I wipe them and put them
back on there’s a fraction
of clarity that stuns me enough
I drop everything and stand dumb
and open-mouthed. Inhale.
Drying
my wet jaw where all the cliché awe
is or starts its way out. Seeing like she
saw.
Over that flat lake late. At the
bob
of boats.
At the men throwing.
And their throwing is unwipeable.
She sees but doesn’t. She can’t wipe
her eyes enough to see her own feet.
Even if she looked, even though they’re
attached, they have blood that moves,
they tingle.
And her cheeks sag
and her glasses droop. I see.
I do
but I don’t.
I wasn’t there. I don’t.
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