Dave Bonta's short poem starts with something simple: the effort of drawing. The speaker says that to make a picture, they have to pay closer attention than usual, looking harder than they ever do in ordinary life. That sounds like a practical tip, but the poem quickly turns strange.
The ink appears "in a fresh light," and the drawing uses perspective "to delude one's eye." Here the poem points to a trick: a flat page can fool us into seeing depth. Once the speaker notices how the illusion works, the final lines follow naturally. Such an experience "would make a man doubt / that ever he saw anything."
The speaker seems quietly unsettled, though also curious. Careful looking, which should make us surer of what's in front of us, instead shakes our trust in our own eyes. The mood is thoughtful and a little dizzy, like staring at a familiar word until it stops looking real.