Green Eyes I’d never seen them green before They reminded me of Miss La Rosa When she showed me what I’d gotten wrong In math One by one she laid the tests down On our desks and bent her head A little, smiling – she was awfully nice, Which made it all the worse – As if to say “You’re so much smarter!” Generally I blushed twice as hard Not only for my dumb mistakes But for her eyes and how they made me feel, Which was to want to move mine closer Till our noses touched Her make-up made her eyes stand out By sinking in, so that they shone Like emeralds in a cave: To steal a glance at them Seemed like piracy At the blackboard though They were the colour of arithmetic again Before she turned her back And reaching with her chalk To balance an equation Multiplied the mischief of my dreams One warm Spring afternoon she woke me up By asking something that I didn’t hear But should have known And marched me to the front of the class The sun was streaming in and when she saw that Blinded as I was I couldn’t even scribble anything Her eyes came out The greener they became the ruddier I grew It was the pity, though, that sent me Scuttling like a lobster to my chair: She couldn’t help herself This morning Maybe it was the angle of the light Or the inclination of your head But when your irises changed hue Sudden as a field of grasses gusted by a wind I couldn’t help but gaze upon The richly-shaded radiating folds and sluices Of a new terrain ________________________________________________________________________ Emanuel E. García, Sinking In, One Hundred Poems, 2013 |