Myopia: A Cartography

Friend, I do not wish to mire here

any longer on the caldera, hot & molten

in a yellow bathing suit, coaxing

an inferno out of this empty vat.

I musk among other creatures

who can’t see well: wolverines,

vampire bats, camels, rhinos.

There is a rhino inside my bones.

I want more menace out of poor eyesight—

If I, too, can charge

at dark cloud-things!

Friend, I don’t wish to skulk one moment longer

in front of this mirror, fooled by distortion,

image intercepting rib, a chiaroscuro in these

blind, blinking eyes. How inane, to revert

to this elemental self—all cheekbone

and contour, an easy obsession

but never the cure. My habitat is far away.

This nightgown reveals one rib too many.

The vanishing point is elsewhere. For my doctor, the pineal

gland regulates sleep. For Descartes, it rules reason.

For me it fails both. No sleep is sound. I can’t calculate distance.

Sometimes I can’t even measure what’s between my hand

and this spoon—my hip

and this hand—my eyelid

and this paper—

I can’t name the direction of the clearest E—

nor the miles to the nearest town—

But friend, I won’t mourn this blimp-shaped eye forever.

I won’t bury my head on your lap,

stranded at this station where trains

pass but never stop, thunder blowing

up my ears, sight, silence, skirt.

Without water, flora will spawn

Holes, whole, holes, whole, holes, whole.

Holes in teeth, holes on a coat,

Another hole adorns my suitcase.

When even tubas fail, and sunlight

Tears a hole in my retina,

Holes are the only truth.

Holes on the roof, holes in the dirt

Holes will make us complete again.

Who will ride again

the incandescent bicycle, now that vision

has left us? If we consider the parallel

shadows, the vanishing point falls

on the fishbowl, where jellyfish

shrink and squids leak sad inks.

O, to be permanently

challenged. Sometimes we wake up

with dive-bombs in our eyes.

Trapped sobs. Sometimes when we try to speak,

we can’t even stammer.