Eye Test by Naomi Shihab Nye
It’s been a very long and tiring day and I wanted to post something that made me smile. Also, a friend and I were just talking about eye tests yesterday, so this seems apropos.
Eye Test
By Naomi Shihab Nye
The D is desperate.
The B wants to take a vacation,
live on a billboard, be broad and brave.
The E is mad at the R for upstaging him.
The little c wants to be a big C if possible,
and the P pauses long between thoughts.
How much better to be a story, story.
Can you read me?
We have to live on this white board
together like a neighborhood.
We would rather be the tail of a cloud,
one letter becoming another,
or lost in a boy’s pocket
shapeless as lint,
the same boy who squints to read us
believing we convey a secret message.
Be his friend.
We are so tired of meaning nothing.
