On the eye chart, bold and exact,
Each letter has a weight and relevance;
What then accounts for the dissonant elements
As fonts condense and lines contract?
For some acuter, furtive patient
Who dares to peer between the readings,
No sign is isolated, but leading
Up from latent, links to sounds adjacent,
To raise a text incantatory and nascent.
The spotlight in the dark has only blurred
The black and white, the vision on the soffit;
Patient transfixed, practitioner obscured,
Who will discern the shapes and spell the word —
Optometrist, cryptographer, or prophet?