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 Poems2013