AUTHOR NARRATION
Hear the poem.
Read by the author in the original English.
Ode to Eye SocketsEnglish narration
POEM + ARCHIVE
Ode toEye Sockets
BEHIND THE POEM
A Valentine's Day collision.
On February 14, 2017, a large standing mirror fell while I was lying beneath it and shattered across my face.
The experience eventually became the starting point for Ode to Eye Sockets: a poem of gratitude for the anatomical hollows that quietly shield some of the body's most vulnerable parts.
That idea expands through the poem into a broader gratitude for useful absences, protective recesses, negative results, backgrounds, and other essential things that are easiest to overlook when they are doing their jobs correctly.
And because this happened on Valentine's Day: yet another reason to F*** February.
FROM THE ARCHIVE
The evidence survives.
Photographs associated with the accident and its aftermath.
Before
The standing mirror before the accident that would later inspire the poem.
The broken mirror
The mirror after it fell and shattered on February 14, 2017.
Aftermath
One of the photographs documenting the physical aftermath of the accident.
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