Ode to My Contacts
Ode to My Contacts
You who I never seem to see
Who I only seem to
See through
How many pairs of you
Have I plucked from my eyes
And thrown away
Ungratefully
So close I forget you’re there
Like the lugubrious laboring
Of my heart in the dark
But tonight I look down at these two
Ignominiously adrift
In the toilet
They that brought the insurrectionary blur
Of the world into focus
Like a child careful
To color within the lines
That saved me from certain death
Several times
For how could I have crossed
Mission and lived?
Thank you for bringing the black
Words up to my eyes
And deeper
How I love your blue trim
Like the stitching of a dress
When she turns it inside-out
Taking it off
And the faint numbers
1 2 3
That tell me when
You're inside-out
Your kind keep my face
Free of glasses
As if I was born this way
How easy it is to see
Right through you
As if through a boy
Who is clearly lying
I vow from now on
To consider you a moment
Before throwing you away
I will lean down and squint at you
Pinched in my palm
Folded over like quizzes
Marked with embarrassing grades
So that the kids know
How they did
Long before they see