Maculopathy

There’s a metal disk, the size

Of a dinner plate and stamped

To look like a double-chinned

Face—prominent nose and closed

Eyes, plump cheeks—surrounded by

Ten wires bent to look like flames,

Hanging on a stucco wall.

Although it’s this ruddy-bronze,

Vaguely floral, human face,

Anyone would recognize

It as sun, as in, that sun

Hanging up there, on the wall.

How perfect is this symbol

Everyone recognizes

For imagining the thing

You can’t look at directly

As a benign human face

Reflecting nothing, eyes closed?

You could stare at it for hours

And not see any deeper

Into what a meaning is.