Jennifer Still - Field Test

Twenty years measuring
strangers’ eyes, entire fields
of vision. Despair and happiness

look the same in the iris:
synaptic blue roots, wired
cross-attachments.

You tell them what they see:
simple horizon, hot-air balloon.
Not what they feel: trapped, anxious.

Come closer. There I am,
a small horn in the corner.
Can you see, I’m no angel?

Blonde-haired, grey-eyed
allelic motes float. We share

the pressure:
you with your trigger,
me with my flinch.

What do you see in this puff of air?
Test me Mother, I’m disappearing.

_____

From Girlwood by Jennifer Still (Brick Books, 2011).