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Teri White Carns

short-sighted

My first glasses come when I am six years old. The doctor says, “Now you have 20-20 sight, like everyone else.” I sit at the kitchen table looking across to dishes on the counter, taking the glasses off, putting them on, taking them off, putting them on, seeing the world of everyone else.

Even glasses, though, are no help in the backyard softball games. I don’t wait to be chosen last; I just stand out close to the elm tree where bugs in the leaves divert my attention from any ball that might come by. Because if I catch the ball, I won’t throw it right, and everyone will be madder at me.

One advantage that I keep—being the only kid at the lake to dive from the 20-foot board. Without my glasses, the water seems nearby, and the other kids gasp at my courage.

At the senior prom, I play a chimera, a scholarly social butterfly, in contact lenses that give invisible 20-20 vision. Now I not only see like everyone else, I look like them too. But in college, I am as bad at butterflying as at softball, having no training or skills for either.

20-20 vision? It doesn’t always show the way . . .

my glasses broken
I can’t see to toast the moon –
just looking at blooms
up close, each petal’s lines clear,
each gnat a flying dragon

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About the Author

Teri White Carns publishes haibun and tanka prose. She does justice system research, reported in law reviews and elsewhere. She holds an MFA in creative nonfiction from Antioch University LA.