Carrie Etter’s The Tethers

   
Cult of the Eye
Carrie Etter
 
Then I glanced over the treetops, the miles of pasture
the window shows me again and again,
and soon I began to believe the window –
I became a votary in the cult of the eye and the cult
of transparency, because after we spoke
I used a form of to be as an equal sign: you were transparent.
I gleefully forbore the scepticism of seemed.
  
Admittedly, I nearly said you appeared transparent,
but I put my ear to the window’s mantra
and asseverated your sincerity without reserve.
If this is a love poem, that’s because I’m ready to love everybody.
I’ll gaze on the miles of pasture as the sun descends
and never think I must kneel in the dampening grass –
and you’ll refrain, just for now, from remarking on my naiveté.
  
 
First published in Poetry Review and included in The Tethers
(Seren, 2009).
 
Read more about Carrie and The Tethers here.
  
Visit Carrie’s blog.
  
Purchase The Tethers at The Book Depository.

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