Monologue

Is light on skin
vision? With the eyes closed—
is this vision? The video of a moth
                        on my laptop screen
shines no real light on me.
And the light on my ceiling, too,
shines no real light on me. Only
detail
fronding into further detail:
fact, and the responsibility of fact. Like the flower,
I want light to be
heat,
flatness; I am against
particulars. I will take out my eyes
like peach stones
and go inert in the sun.

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Calvin Smith is a poet based in Wellington. His poems have previously appeared in Starling and Sweet Mammalian.