I'm Major Jackson and this is the slowdown.

I'm Major Jackson and this is the slowdown. slow down. I thought by now I would have fixed my vision.

I tried contacts years ago.

I could not work my lengthy eyelashes back far enough

to clear the way for the hard dime-sized plastic to settle on my eyes.

LASIK was out of the question.

I worried unreasonably, of course,

if the surgeon slipped. there goes my sight.

If you've seen me at a reading lately, you've noticed me waving a pair of glasses in my hands.

They're along for the ride as I just pair of glasses in my hands.

They're along for the ride as I gesticulate,

not intentionally to punctuate my thoughts,

but out of convenience.

I am near-sighted, so I don my specs when talking to the

audience and remove them when reading from my books. It could be worse. Picture me looking over readers down at someone, or progressive lenses that

have me tilt my head back so that my nose is in the air. Years ago, I first heard today's poem performed by the poet on a recording.

The poem gave me a framework that aligned with my aesthetic beliefs and gave me a reason to embrace my imperfect vision.

Poets and visual artists work to give representation to the world with

shimmers and blurs. Sometimes only impressions are available.

Rather than a fidelity to things as they are, we desire to represent those very distortions.

Today's dramatic monologue is a gem of a poem, one that reminds how everything around us

is divined with light, even our imperfections.

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