On Phosphenes
Visual perception does not end in a darkened room, blindfolded. There is no such thing as total
dark; the optic nerve continues to fire, mis-
fire, sending cues. if we wish
Too often, this fall, to have led another life / We do not mean that we would give up ours. 1
From the retina, the nerves, stored and re-created.
Darkness is not required; only the absence
of visual stimuli, in the absence
Soon after we can see, we are aware that we can also be seen. The eye of the other combines
with our own eye to make it fully credible that we are part of the visible world. 2
common to us all.
1 Stephen Burt, “The People on the Bus”
2 Berger, Ways of Seeing
C. Kubasta is the author the chapbooks, A Lovely Box and &s, and a full-length collection, All Beautiful & Useless (BlazeVOX, 2015). She has two books forthcoming in December 2017: Of Covenants (poetry, Whitepoint Press) and Girling (a novella, Brain Mill Press). She is active with the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets, coordinates the Lake Reading Series at the Thelma Sadoff Center for the Arts, and serves as Assistant Poetry editor with Brain Mill Press. Her work explores place (the Midwest), the body (our imperfect perfect flesh), and language (its slippages). Find her at www.ckubasta.com. Follow her @CKubastathePoet.
Link: https://whitepointpress.com/our-books/of-covenants-by-c-kubasta/
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