The idea for this poem came to me while I was reading Billy Collins' newest collection. He mentioned his glasses at one point, and I thought about writing something about having LASIK eye surgery. The part about my mom is based on real life, but I had not thought of adding that to the poem until I was already composing it.
30/20
Now you have Superman vision,
the surgeon announced
after the surgery,
my eyes puffy and swollen
and covered with plastic discs
the size of lenses
I once wore in eighth grade
before converting to contacts,
the tiny parentheses
that made peripheral vision
possible. Now road signs,
movie screens, children’s faces
will always have razor sharp
focus, so why is it I think
of my mother on Christmas Eve
in the front seat of our car,
ooo-ing and ahhh-ing over bulbs
draped around trees and rooflines
as she removes her glasses,
sending the world from exactitude
to a messy swirl of light and color?
