seeing

Seeing

This is the sea, then, this great abeyance.

How the sun’s poultice draws on my inflammation.

                                                                Berk-Plage

                                                                Sylvia Plath

Have you ever forgot to blink?

For the stretched extensions

your eyes see out, all the while

drying quietly, while stem-

cell visor/wipers are
narrating lies under the lid,

while they swipe over the ball.

And all is falling

to dust.  The salt and parched

iris are changing to

crust underneath

the almost all-seeing.  So

it’s down to this: the little red

veins have been given

their resurrection: they

alone make the break

and take off across

the scrubbed sclera,

blunted by the iris, shy

of the deep hole

of the pupil, the body’s

first crevasse.  At least

I’ve heard it said that

light comes in and is

sucked down, is gulped,

thirsted for, so the blur

is the straight up choke

of it, the ‘go

slow companion, go

slow’ press of the hand

on the wrist, giving

ease, giving permission 

though for what

varies from eye to eye

throat hole to throat

hole, closing (though

let me tell you

it’s never enough,

the thirst itself is the verge)

and blinking

has become

a step made heavier

and heavier, made

delinquent, a risk, tearing