Ground to exacting standards,
my new glasses enable me
to read French and German without
a dictionary. Slang of Brecht,
the interstices of Wittgenstein,
grimaces of Zola and Balzac,
passionate verbs of Baudelaire
clarify and crystallize at last.
Sorry you can’t try them out,
but my prescription’s too strong
for you. Maybe next time
you visit your oculist he’ll order
a pair for you. Meanwhile I’m reading
Goethe and Flaubert while mouthing
their language without an accent,
applying myself with mastery
my teachers couldn’t evoke.
Flushed with envy, you decide
to get glasses to empower you
to read ancient Greek and Latin
with a sense of the colloquial
and scholarly verve and detachment.
You promise to clarify Pindar
and stir the flux of the Iliad
and render Catullus in colors
that blush with poetic glee.
We’ll make a fine pair of scholars,
won’t we? But are we cheating
by skipping ponderous grammars
and peering straight into language?
I’ll ask again when I finish
reading Madame Bovary and Faust,
the rich vowels slipping through me
with radiance that refreshes
in tones never struck before.
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