TRANSCRIPT

I’m Maggie Smith, and this is The Slowdown.

So many sayings, metaphors and idioms deal with vision. The same way the heart is as much a symbol of feeling as it is an organ in the body, vision is used to refer to thinking as much as it is to seeing. Figuratively, vision refers to mental perception or the ability to anticipate what might happen in the future — to “look ahead,” so to speak. You can “catch someone’s eye,” “keep your eye on someone,” and “see eye to eye” … or not!

The problem with using these metaphors is they can easily slip into ableist language — linguistic micro-aggressions against people with disabilities. These phrases become so baked into our thinking, we don’t even realize that they’re harmful, but that just means we need to be more conscientious about the language we use. I try to avoid phrases like “the blind leading the blind” and “turning a blind eye” for this reason. The connotations are negative, and so is the message they send to people with disabilities. I have to believe that we poets can use language in a kinder, and more accurate, way.

Poets use language the way an artist uses paint, the way sculptors use clay. It’s our material. We have to use it wisely, not only as craftspeople but as humans who care about others.

The way today’s poem talks about vision — and vision problems — is original, and vulnerable, and full of nuance. It uses the idea of vision to speak not only into the future, but also, into the past.

Liquefying
by Chloe Yelena Miller

Your eyes liquefy with age.
                — My ophthalmologist

I saw a flock of birds taking off, but only in the corner of one eye. Then, flickering lights, a half-
moon. A swaying line blurred my vision like an inefficient eraser.

Doctor says, The line isn’t the line but a shadow of the line.

I learn the vitreous humor (not funny at all) liquifies with age. Vitreous,  from the Latin, glassy.

I need those eyes, the ones that are not glass or even fully jellylike anymore. I need them to write
this, to hear, even, as I misunderstand the doctor’s words while my eyes are dilated. Pupils
widened like open patios for the doctor to see into but useless for me. The dilation breaks my
eyes; my senses rely on one another.

If a curtain lowers and blackens the room, head to the ER. If lights flash like cameras, you know, 
like the old-fashioned cameras, head to the ER. Maybe something has ripped or torn. Or maybe
not. Maybe it is an ocular migraine. Or maybe nothing at all. You need us to look.

The specialist shines lights into my eyes. The kind of brightness we are told to look away from. 
The kind of lights children in old movies use with mirrors to burn holes into paper or kill bugs.

I remember my aunt’s eyes, always tearing. Liquefied, I guess, at 102. I wonder what she saw,
shadows or otherwise.

What was her view? She often looked past us—like our child, close in our arms, sometimes did
as an infant.

“Liquefying” by Chloe Yelena Miller. Used by permission of the poet.