Kay Mullen: “Up Close”
UP CLOSE
for AJM
Held together by a single pin, worn
leather swivels away to reveal two
spheres of glass. He stashes the magnifier
in a shirt pocket, useful when curious
about a book, a foreign stamp, a fragment
of bone. I observe him use it to enlarge print
from an old thesaurus, for lucidity in root
words of a Latin translation. He searches
for metaphysics of maps, ordinary objects
looking for candor, essence of honesty
in simple and complex ways of seeing.
He gathers the larger image of hours,
illuminates how matter matters in the great
pattern of the universe, how everything
observed enlarges perception, how a quest
burgeons insight. Always ready for new
revelations, every word, book, belief
augments and shapes his life. He amplifies
the moment, a clarity he approaches beyond
the lens and tattered leather cover.
Kay Mullen’s poems have appeared in Cross Winds Poetry Review, San Pedro River Review, American Life in Poetry and other journals and anthologies. She has authored three books of poetry. Mullen lives and teaches in Tacoma.