My lover has two glass eyes.
She plucks them out
and we shoot them like marbles
in my driveway. At parties, she floats
them in the punch bowl,
and waits for the screams
after they are scooped into a cup.
Sometimes she freezes one in an ice cube
and drops it in someone’s cocktail.
Same principle. I suggest that she drop them
behind our car during a chase, to blow out
our pursuers’ tires. They’re not caltrops, she says gently.
Sometimes she rolls them between her palms,
like little balls of clay. She is sensitive about her eyes.
She wears a blindfold always–a red silk sash
around her head. She worries I will leave her,
calls herself an eyeless wench. Never, I say.
Eyes are a distraction, a garnish.
Your mouth, I say, is what will keep me always. Ryan Teitman is a graduate of Penn State University with an honors degree in English. He currently works as a journalist in Philadelphia.