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I breathe across and the sun
gripped to the slippery center
making its way through the mist

--my eyeglasses need the wash
the cooling breath as when soup
poured from one cauldron, then back

until black --each lens
is darkened by the sun
and the Bausch-Lomb Company Inc
has the patent, prints its number 

takes my hand --the frame
fills and emptied as if its glass
was made from shallow sand
and fires and numbers and the rain I can't
see

--takes my eyes --it's a rain
that will become stones, will be every word
said twice --someone, something, somehow

the echo is heavier, after awhile
there's snow. Granite is made this way
--by the dead, a stone
darkening till even the sun

falls away, has no light left
and the clean snow on your shoulders.

With each dry rag I try to restore
a sail whose only hope is where sand
comes to the surface --I try and the sun

falling on its side --what I rub off each
lens
is a great sea blown off course
--it's beginning to be a joke
--either I lose each pair
or break their frame in half
--how long can they live in these nets
tied fast to some grey stone still
breathing.

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