Testing Center, Wills Eye Hospital

 

First one eye patched, then the other,

we stare into machines which gauge

what cannot be regained, measuring

the unknown. Inside their whirs and clicks,

star by star, flashes of an artificial cosmos

appear then disappear within the limits

of sight and beyond. Dark voids form

where light dies unseen,

glimpsed only in visions.

Within my mind's eye the lost edges

of a hundred crimson sunsets take shape,

a fawn stands just off the highway

on a late summer drive,

an old friend winks from the corner

of a crowded room, and somewhere

near the border of a gray December garden,

a small statue of Pan plays the flute.

 

From Miracle of the Wine (Grayson Books, 2012).

Used here with the author's permission.