The Kaleidoscope My Father Made for Me
Eyepiece-spied prophet’s eye.
Cyclops’ roundly stare. Window’s winnowed
cathedral light. Revolved unsolved pi.
Soothsaid stars and petals flowered.
Walled honeycomb. Patchwork quilts resewn.
Spin of roulette wheel—
eye to tiny grindstone,
I see sealed quartz’s jagged beads reel.
Glassy cataract’s churned chaos,
mirrored moment shattered whole:
insect’s compound eye’s lost cosmos.
My father’s hand has made my father’s soul:
my father drew the wavering line of solder;
lead outlives the dead, for his grown daughter.
—Valerie Wohlfeld, Annapolis, MD
