CNF: Exam
by Kathleen McGookey
When I drop quarters in the meter near Bronson Park, I always buy more time than I need. My optometrist says near-sighted people focus on what’s within reach. If I remove my glasses, clouds form faceless smears; the horizon becomes a concept like kindness or faith. My optometrist is near-sighted, too, and doesn’t mind when, in the darkened room, I can’t choose between the lenses he flips through–one, or two? Better, or worse? His machine presses my head into the chair. He hands me a small laminated card, illuminates it, and asks me to read words the size of a grain of rice on the church steps, the freckle at the corner of my husband’s mouth, my infant daughter’s eyelash. As he takes the card back, he says I did well, only I’ve mistaken tersely for tenderly, and alien for alive.
Kathleen McGookey has published four books of prose poems and three chapbooks, most recently Instructions for My Imposter (Press 53) and Nineteen Letters (BatCat Press). She has also published We’ll See, a book of translations of French poet Georges Godeau’s prose poems. Her work has appeared in journals including Copper Nickel, Crazyhorse, December, Field, Glassworks, Miramar, Ploughshares, Prairie Schooner, Quiddity, and The Southern Review, and was featured on American Life in Poetry. She has received grants from the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Sustainable Arts Foundation.
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What surprising, fascinating stuff can you tell us about the origin, drafting, and/or final version of “Exam”? I’ve worn glasses for almost fifty years. My eyesight is so bad now that if I took my glasses off and forgot where I put them, I would never find them. But this never happens, because I am very careful. Having an eye exam always makes me feel a kind of resignation, because often I can’t choose between the options that are presented to me. I can always tell when it’s time for one, though, because I find myself misreading words. I used some of my favorite misreadings in this piece.
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Poetry, creative nonfiction, and fiction/prose poetry submissions are now closed. The reading period for standard submissions opens again September 15, 2025. Submit here.
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