Vision Test

After the vision test you can see

But not well,

Fuzzy outlines mostly.

The light is shatteringly bright

So you wear dark glasses to reduce its glare. 

Cool, mysterious dark glasses if you’re lucky.

Hey, who is that behind the Foster Grants?

A co-worker calls out.

Easy jokes and camaraderie,

But you’re cut off from everyone for the rest of the day.

The world goes on without you fully in it,

An icon of isolation.

 

Your vision has been tested,

Found wanting, or approved.

They’ve told you which but it feels like both.

Your eyes are at once good enough and not good enough

To see clearly.

It depends on how you look at it.

For a while your vision wasn’t yours, it belonged to others,

Eye-care specialists.  Professionals of vision.

They enclosed it in their machines,

They measured its infinitesimal distances.

They know more about what you see than you do.

They know you can’t see to drive, operate heavy machinery,

Or read emotions on a loved one’s mouth.

You wear dark glasses to protect your eyes from too much light.

A strange kind of security.  How can there be too much light?  

 

You wait patiently for your vision to return,

Removing the glasses, checking the clock,

Looking down at your hands,

And using the parts of it that never left:

You see with your nostrils, with your breath,

Your fingertips, the soles of your feet

Squeezed by your shoes.

The warmth in your groin.

What can’t you see?

You are in the land of cool, mysterious shades,

Not shadows.  Not darkness.  

It’s still you behind the Foster Grants.

Surely everyone can see that. 

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