lies near the sea in a small town
overlooking an inlet—
blink and you’ll miss it.
The place reeks of sweet acetone.
Fuming stink eyes. Better not surmise,
Isn’t it carcinogenic? as the manager
benignly opens drawers so you
can ogle his droplet-sized prizes.
Try to look the other way.
He shows you hawk and doll eyes, roly poly deer eyes—
and if they weren’t so astonishing, you’d have half a mind
to pop one in your mouth like hard candy—
eye candy. Snake eyes. Lion eyes—
a thousand eyes for you to buy,
but no supply to glamorize the hurricane’s
Cyclops, its socket seething your way, need blind.
No remedy for the weeping bull’s eye
you’ll soon be; nothing
for anything you wish you might unsee.