Love Poem As Eye Examination Poem by Victoria Chang

The room became a raven until a white fire lit
the wall. The doctor's breath alarmed

and I was suddenly inside this bird, looking out
of its eye. O doctor,

why do you set traps, map out what I see,
cage my broken eyes,

make clear the branch that was fire, the geese
that were windmills rotating?

Which is better: one or two, three or four? What if
I don't need choices?

What if I can't see the letters-the P always looks
like an F. Or the F is

really a P that has opened its floodgates. What if
I am the F and my river never thins?

If there isn't a last row, a disappearance?
Then I want his salt in my eye,

his hand that perforates the gate with paint, that
nails cabinets in our garage, that joins

our scavenged bodies and pulls them through
the flaming flue.