Sounds like a small burrowing animal
that might make its home in far Tasmania
or the Faroe Islands, with a long spindly tail
and small pink feet with curving claws.
Or perhaps a tiny forest under glass,
the trees wizened and diminutive
like the bound feet of girls contorted
in a cruel fairytale. Not at all
like a small pink growth on the cornea,
shaped like a wing and usually benign.
The cause is unknown but the condition
is called “surfer’s eye” although
the sufferer may have never seen
a surfboard or failed to protect the eyes
while riding waves in Puerto Rican sun.
May also be caused by overexposure
to dust and ultraviolet rays. Remember
the deafening tennis-club dance halls
where white dresses glowed in the dark
and pasty Irish boys looked suntanned
in the pulsing purple light.
Seeking words with i-u-m endings,
I find horologium. If horology
is the study of the measurement of time,
surely a horologium must be a museum
wherein I might find a sundial, hourglass,
clepsydra, or even a cuckoo clock.
But thanks to technological advances,
I discover a constellation of six stars,
faintly visible in the southern celestial
hemisphere. This is where surfing
the Thesaurus will take you—
into a forest of words where you
stumble around, forgetting the time
and your circadian rhythms,
to emerge hours later, rubbing
your eyes in the blinding electric
light of your own scriptorium.
