Papa, Can You See Me?

Belgium, 1945, borrowed from Life.

Papa, Can You See Me?

Papa, can you see me
as light rays strike the corneal windshield,
becoming an old man too,
entering gently the anterior chamber,
plunging affectionately through the clear aqueous,
yes alone, but far from lonely,
penetrating the hazel iris
as the pupil recalls and dilates, snapping
like a nikon shutter, do I look
like you did racing deep into the convex city
of the crystalline lens, narrowing the focus
to a molten spearhead of data, are my hands
large like yours, shoulders as broad,
chest as hirsute, churning midst the turgid
viscosity of vitreous like a jet boat
aimed as bullet toward the bull’s eye
of foveal indentation, the majestic macula,
did you ever notice the astonishing strength
in my young arms, were you a little proud
of the intellect you assisted in nurturing,
bathing the cones in royal radiance,
vibrating into colors recognized, pounding,
pulsating over the retinal vastness
like an F5 windstorm, stimulating
the great transducer to convert
the edgy rawness into clean neural impulses,
that Navajo mystery code, did you attend
all three of my college graduations, watch me
swing a broadsword as MacDuff, or reaching
out to thousands of my blind brothers
that raced incredibly down the salt flats
of the optic nerve aqueduct powerfully,
like my ’68 Impala ragtop Super Sport
with the 396 roaring and the top down,
screeching hotly into the Gestalt Station
anchored within the occipital foothills
of perception, where every moment you missed
is cataloged, saved, treasured, waiting
for your gaze, for even though
we seemed to have passed by each other
in this lifetime, too densely immersed
faceless in those train stations with separate
destinations, still, Papa,
I am beginning to see some of you
in my morning mirror, and that
will have to be enough,
this time.

Glenn Buttkus

June 2011


Listed as #29 over on Magpie Tales 68

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