Five Points, Vol. 19, no. 2
Summer 2019"I’ve always kept one foot out of the academy. This has always been a conscious act on my part. Physically, spiritually, mentally, emotionally. I refuse to let the academy have me in any kind of whole way."
—Nikky Finney
Sample Content
Jenny Xie
from Visual Orders
[1] Harvest the eyes from the ocular cavities. Complete in themselves: a pair of globes with their own meridians. [2] What atrophies without the ending of a gaze? The visible object is constituted by sight. But where to spend one's sight, a soft currency? To be profligate in taking in the outer world is to shortchange the interior one. Though this assumes a clean separation, a zero-sum game. [3] To draw ink-lines across the lids To dip into small pots of pigment To brush two dozen times To flush with water and tame with oil To restrain and to spill in appropriate measure To drink from the soft and silvery pane To extract the root of the solitary so as to appear [4] Describe how the interior looks. Cloak the eyes. Close them, and seeing continues.