Spectacles

The twitching to existence

of a missing limb,

the abrupt reflex

of something not there

is not a memory;

it’s

an expectation

of the familiar.

It—or whatever

it was that was us—

is presumably unmindful

of erasure.

A part of ourselves

at that instant registers

the absence.

Spectacles too

are a limb of sorts—

part exoskeleton,

unretractable.

When they became

my body

I neither know

nor wish to.

Momentarily seeking

my likeness in the mirror

I decide to adjust them

though they aren’t there.