2 September 2003 | Vol. 3, No. 3
Astigmatism
Does hair resent being cut?
Rotunda of the eye, its waves?
Breasts being covered?
Are the answers the same?
What makes you think I have any?
I am not my hair, eyes, or breasts.
Tell me, please, how to sail
down the corridors of my hair,
shield my glabrous eyes, apprehend
the white flash off the ripe arc
of my left breast. Tell me, will you,
who Picasso is and everything
he knew about being alive.
He knew red loves a field of gray,
the apostasy of fragmentation,
the apotheosis in re-articulation.
I'd like to thank him for showing me.
This is what I look like when I leave the space
I'm standing in: animated, and light
splashes across my retina, so I can't see,
and there's no telling what might come down
first: foot, vulva, clavicle, all raucous,
asserting claims on disassemblage,
each new focus proving
the breakdown matters more than answers.
About the author:
Laura McCullough has published poems widely in literary magazines and journals such as Conte, Dream People, Nimrod, Potion, Hotel Amerika, Gulf Coast, Nightsun, Spoken War, Iron Horse Quarterly, Boulevard, Amarillo Bay, God Particle, Poetry East, Confluence, Exquisite Corpse, 42opus, the Potomac, Stirring, Word Riot, Tarpaulin Sky, and others. Her first collection of poems, The Dancing Bear, was published in February 2006 by Open Book Press with jacket blurbs by Stephen Dunn, Li-Young Lee, and BJ Ward.
For further reading:
See the complete list of work by Laura McCullough at 42opus. Browse the contents of 42opus Vol. 3, No. 3, where "Astigmatism" ran on September 2, 2003. List other work with these same labels: poetry.
