after all these years...

it was a fault of shortsight.

to read chalk

on a blackboard;

the bridge between

seeing and learning,

built another

crooked bridge:

out of malleable bone

and pliable years.

And in the ninth,

heavy coke-bottle glass and names,

gave way to new sight

I could poke into my eyes every morning.

but still the nose

I wasn't born with,

I said, ruined by spectacles so early on.

Fingers in mirrors trying to undo

the done, see,

this is what I'm meant to look like.

but now I see pictures

of daddy looking away,

profiles of a man

with perfect sight.

and I see a bridge 

between him 

and I.

Fingers in a mirror,

tapping a line, see, 

this is what I look like.