PALMETTO POEM: Four eyes

By Molly Braedon McConnell, special to Charleston Currents

sometimes i take off my glasses               throw away the contact lenses in my cabinet               and               i blur my eyes on purpose               cross them               play double-dutch with my pupils               the lack of focus makes things               better               i can’t explain it               how those little moments in between it all               make everything soft               like living room drapes in old movies               or fog hanging low enough to comb your hand straight through               or twine smaller than your fingernail               everything undoes itself               frays, in a sense               in a good way, though               sharp edges are paper-smooth on the skin               fences don’t come to points at the top               instead they just keep               growing up and up and up               out into periphery

sometimes i despise my glasses               my shortcomings perched at the bridge of my nose                bent by glass small enough to crack in my palm              but sometimes i can’t help but               long for it               that perfect twenty              i’d imagine i’d lay down               no glasses to take off               no contact lenses to trash               and i’d find my eyes stuck together               locked in this perpetual               clear               suddenly everyone becomes a flashlight               stars now headlights in oncoming traffic               my fingerprints, microscopic highways               and everything starts to tangle up in itself               everything becomes an afterimage              a seeing eye poster               you know exactly what you’re looking at             but you know you’re not             Seeing

Molly Braedon McConnell is a senior attending Charleston County School of the Arts as a creative writing major. They won first prize in the Martin Luther King Jr. Speak-Out Poetry Slam and have been recognized both regionally and nationally by the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards. Their debut collection of creative non-fiction and poetry, Portrait of the Fowl, released earlier this spring. 

(Thanks to poetry editor Marjory Wentworth for sending along Molly’s poem.)

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