OF THE BEHOLDER
The eye
looked me in the eye.
I couldn't take my eyes
off of it.
It was a fine brown eye
sitting there in the pale sunshine
that grew paler by the second.
I knew I knew the eye
...somehow, but
- not how.
It seemed more
that the eye recognised me.
A fat raindrop
spattered on it.
Followed by another and
another.
Suddenly it seemed
that the eye that couldn't cry
was doing just that.
He picked the eye up
put it in his blazer's top pocket.
Only when he had walked
for an hour or more
did he know
who the eye belonged to.
It was a Vermeer.
That Vermeer with
the young girl turning
as if you had just
called her name.
Where the mouth is slightly open
as if she would answer you.
He wondered how
the eye had come to be
gazing up at him
begging to be
not abandoned.
He wondered where
the rest of the jigsaw
had gone and
why the eye
had seen him
as its only saviour.
He put the eye
in a clear glass frame
where it seemed
to float happily
a suspended being
staring back at me.
Mar 16, 2017
Mar 16, 2017 at 6:58 PM UTC
OF THE BEHOLDER
The eye
looked me in the eye.
I couldn't take my eyes
off of it.
It was a fine brown eye
sitting there in the pale sunshine
that grew paler by the second.
I knew I knew the eye
...somehow, but
- not how.
It seemed more
that the eye recognised me.
A fat raindrop
spattered on it.
Followed by another and
another.
Suddenly it seemed
that the eye that couldn't cry
was doing just that.
He picked the eye up
put it in his blazer's top pocket.
Only when he had walked
for an hour or more
did he know
who the eye belonged to.
It was a Vermeer.
That Vermeer with
the young girl turning
as if you had just
called her name.
Where the mouth is slightly open
as if she would answer you.
He wondered how
the eye had come to be
gazing up at him
begging to be
not abandoned.
He wondered where
the rest of the jigsaw
had gone and
why the eye
had seen him
as its only saviour.
He put the eye
in a clear glass frame
where it seemed
to float happily
a suspended being
staring back at me.
