Screens

Would I rather live with crawly-fliey-bugs in my house so to see backyard birds—they eat gifts of hydrogenated suet—clearly from a study window? Would I admit the buzzing interruption tormenting the light hanging above? Screens: civil separation.

Aging has been hard on my eyes—squinting gives only poor relief and increases the creases bracketing my eyes. Not brackets—more like lightly wind rippled pools tracing a middle-ager’s traveled passing concerns. Too much pre-sunscreen desert tanning and post-surgeon general’s warned off cigarettes? Happy moments; sad. Angry. Dusty screens like cobwebs clouding understanding, a receded memory that won’t quite come when called. Stubborn, distracted, misplaced. Circling around like a cagey mongrel, one of those poor souls that can’t look you in the eye.

Discrete youthful moments when clarity is piercingly confident and brash, long gone; cataracts creep like a cancer. Clouds your minds eye like a dirty swinging porch door. Blink and squint—it doesn’t help.