page 69

Binoculars

for Marc Nieson

I was a stranger. But you look
familiar, people would say.

Big cars, big country. You need
binoculars, here, said a man, I can sell you some.

I took them back to my room
and watched hawks over the river,

sun reddening their tail feathers,
then I looked at everything in my room

through them, the wrong way round—
tiny photographs, books, tiny lamp—

which made me feel instantly philosophical,
distant, a little taller. Infinitely stranger.