Bionic Binoculars

Morley sank into the deep fescue
hiding from the Whirlpool,
the Amana,
the Kirby,
under the branches of the
sweeping elm.

The afternoon buzzed
beyond the fence
beyond the witch's backyard
beyond the wind which pulled the branches
into a sway,
sweeping shadowy fingers
over Morley's chest.

Cat's claw blossoms
hissed and fell,
their poison
shaping
Morley’s world
into anything but ordinary,

t-
e-l-
e-s-c-
o-p-i-n-g his eyes,

lifting his wire-framed glasses
right off his head,
stretching his sockets
up into the branches of the
sweeping elm.

Twisting and climbing,
his lenses explored

mockingbird architecture,
squirrel-stashed harvests,
black beetle borings,
his eye-tipped tentacles extending

past the pumphouse,
the stables,
the swing set in Angela's yard,

his self-aware eyeballs,
his ocular duo,
relaying
fiber optic messages,

extruded
carbon black snakes

whispering sights
of fire hydrants,
sidewalks,
the Peckinshaw Bridge,
stretching all the way to the county line,

finger tubes of vision,
rubbery peepers,
crossing the border,
tip-toeing across Virginia,
the cartoons caricatures
of a Yellow Pages ad.

Morley's bionic binoculars
slinked,
sleep-walking into the sinking ocean,
pushing past sharks and submarines,
the White Cliffs of Dover,
Saudi Arabia,
and Lianyungang,

playing hop-scotch with planes over French Polynesia,
transversing and tangling with trans-Pacific cables,
sightfully spanning the Grand Canyon
at its deepest widest point,

returning, three-sixty,
to memorable mountains,
his street,
his house,
and the witch's backyard,
where the last thing he saw

was himself
wearing wire-framed glasses
fast asleep
under the branches of the
sweeping elm

where a FLASH of magnesium
blackened his vision
and made his eyes
burn
with the stinging fire
of infinite feedback,

from which moment on,
he saw only darkness

until he awoke.