a poem by Ruth Towne
🎭 Seventh Peril
by Ruth Towne
He sees in apple red. I see in dahlia blue.
In this theater as dark as an eyespot,
its blank sheet hosts a masquerade,
I spy behind my plastic mask,
these bichromic glasses,
one row close to my own basilisk.
A strange meeting,
he with his obsidian eye,
me with my wandering gaze.
These kinds of films count on
one’s ability to triangulate the eyes,
which means nothing for someone like me,
someone not quite stereoblind.
Cue chromatic blasts,
lava red and tropic blue,
silver-scaled gargoyles leaping
off the projector screen,
tasteful, waist-up female nudity,
the fatale femme.
He sees in apple red, I see in dahlia blue,
in pit eye, button eye, glass eye
of a taxidermy trophy.
Eye of Provence, Eye of Horus,
where my eyes should trace a triangle shape,
left eye, right eye, down to mouth,
instead mine play a game of croquet with wickets
scattered all around a stranger’s head,
targets I madly whack.
He sees in apple red, I see in dahlia blue,
he would slice my eye with a razor through.
Red eye, cyan eye,
this begins and ends with the lens.
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