optics

optics, my tenth chapbook, was written on 2026 January 13; it is 5 pages long, excluding the front cover. It is tied with Interpoetry, my ninth chapbook, as my second-shortest work after “∴”. I wrote it during lunch at school. I had my Nikon Trailblazer 8x30mm binoculars with me; I had just bought them in preparation to see Yuval Sharon’s 2026 production of Tristan und Isolde at the Met Opera, though that unfortunately never materialised.

The reference to Zeiss Dialyts and shopgoodwill.com in “binoculars” isn’t fictionalised; I really was watching an auction for them at the time that I wrote the poem. However, I didn’t win; it was probably for the best.

optics is a slight, but that doesn’t mean it’s a bad book; everyone needs a few slights.