Goran Simić, "Wind in the straight-jacket #26"

from: New and Selected Sorrows (2015)


« My first pair of glasses
my parents forced me to wear
to see people better.
A sniper’s binoculars were installed
In the deer antler frames
and I recognized in people
what I didn’t want to see,
too big for childish eyes,
seeing people as deer
or as hunters.

My second pair of glasses, with flashlight lenses,
my teachers forced me to wear to help me
find the invisible.

I didn’t like them.
Usually the recommended books were written
by the hunters
and between the lines I would read the testimony of deer.

The third pair of glasses
I made myself.
Into a plastic frame I inserted
simple window glass
to see myself better.

I didn’t like that pair either.
Every time I wore them
I saw one half of me as a hunter
the other half as a deer.

Now,
half blind I walk the streets clumsy
bumping into passers-by
and apologize politely,
explaining that I just lost my last pair of glasses,
a minute ago
on my way home.
Celebrating for not seeing them
in the shape of hunters
or deer. »