RETINAL SCAN GALAXY

 

an entire life lived in reverse might include a detail like finding your sight

                                    before you even knew you were missing it

oddly enough no one knows their world’s not fuzzy til they see its edges

I remember gasping in wonder at the individuated leaves on autumn trees

I remember pointing with delight at an ordinary sparrow on a branch

an entire world had just unfolded so far away from my fingertips

where only physicists and astronomers could grasp the complexity of my joy

stars and atoms receding into an infinite mandala of mess and meaning

like the fruit or flowers which had just been impressions of color 

                                                                                                                    on a far-away tabletop

monet and lilies for an ordinary suburbia through my nearsighted eyes

so sometimes in the dark or while driving I still practice with my hands

the sight that only my fingertips and palms can understand

how each object holds its edges a certain way, with a certain firmness

or softness, how the pieces of a lighter fit together and the metal is smoother

how a lighter feels nothing like mascara, how mascara feels nothing like a pen

which feels nothing like lipgloss, in spite of being only an assortment of plastic tubes

how each of these are known first to the hand without the eye’s mediation

how our eyes teach us an arbitrary sensation for every object we hold

how a pack of cigarettes is never mistaken for a wallet or vice versa

one delight devoid of color folded in the firmament of the body’s baggage

 

a sphere alone to ten thousand uses

overlooked in a tragically literal sense