When I was 12, my left eye fell out of its socket.
My parents kept it locked in a 3-digit combination safe.
I attended the sixth grade wearing an eye patch.
When I asked April out
she didn’t just say no. The whole grade knew.
Now, if I close one of my eyes, an intuitive
knowledge of space sustains my
depth perception. But at 12, the difference
between life and painting grew obscure. I went with my
class to the Yale art gallery. There were fields wrapped
in cellophane and mirrors.
Six months later, when it had turned to rose quartz,
the psychologist sent us to the ER to have the
eye re-attached. Now, looking around me,
I understand the difference between life and painting even
with the window half open, the bird there
bleeding from its extended wing
blood on the sidewalk mixing with the rain
motion blur troubling the species
and with it the symbolic particulars of the bird.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 26, Issue 4.
Daniel Kuriakose is from Connecticut. He’s 25, lives in Brooklyn and studies at Brooklyn College.
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