Myopia
I see by refraction, like viewing stars
through the lens of a toy telescope: celestial bodies
so close they almost lose themselves, overlapping
as haloes at the curved rims of the frame. Wide-angled
borders make blurred exposures, insights that my eyes
only trespass toward when tired and at night: colour-blind
or monoptic, REM in black-and-white. Every stare, each
quick glance deflected by a peeled eyelid or plastic cap.
Vanishing points foreshortened, resisting synthesis. Camera
obscura, another sexless machine of shutter-clicks, contrasts,
luminance. Dimly distinguished shapes cropped, mounted,
and reframed. Occlusion only persists with the severance
of the optic nerve, by common stigmatism or retinal tear
and detachment; the splitting of convex glass-work, corneal
scratch, another cataract. Now the eye will not focus,
clenched like a fist. And each cracked lens
is a lesson in myopia, depth of field,
point of view.
