Cushion

A weight accumulates in upturned palms

on the approach as attention focuses 

where it shouldn’t, on varied wavering 

forms emerging from the warm purple tone 

mistaken for darkness. One grows attached 

to forms—expanding symmetric systems,

concentric rings, directional flashes

like those reflected onto bare walls 

by passing vehicles until it is

the wall itself overtaking vision. 

Much attentiveness is but distraction.

We relate thresholds with arrivals, praise

the easy work—dreams, pathologies—we collect

our fragments. But there are evenings—one wakes 

to sound of glass breaking, having fallen 

asleep on the floor, meets a sudden bout 

of blindness, rather, of light pouring in, 

leaving only a narrow band of clarity,

base, low in the field, and, turning to ground 

to orient oneself, the flood of light 

follows, so that it seems to spout from some

spring beyond the height of one’s vision, seems

to spout from within. One always fears night,

what with the seeing being taken away, and yet 

it comes again, the brightening, and yet it leaves 

without farewell. No moment to protest.