Given the eyes' fondness
for taking images in, for tumbling them
like clothes in a dryer
until the brain retrieves them
and tries them on,
given the tongue's urge to repeat
what the synapses say, like gossip
working its way along a small town's telephone wires,
given any explanation for what gets caught
inside the skull, I'm inclined
to take a quick step outside myself,
admire the whole business
as if it were framed
and hanging in the Louvre.
Then again, what if the world is perfect
and I'm all wrong,
just a pale nude figure on a chair,
a menagerie looking on
as if the human form
is nature's experiment with abstraction.
I don't know how to make this
any clearer, I keep all my problems
like pickles in a jar,
and if for an instant the light is right
I think that I think I can see.