Dave Bonta's "Eyepiece" starts with a strange picture: two knitting needles, which have no eyes of their own, clicking away as a path folds back on itself into "a field of knots." The sound is compared to a tooth about to break. From the start, the poem feels tense and a little uncanny.
The middle stanza makes its main claim: bodies are "not as finished as we think." A third eye might open anywhere, and even a navel can seem to wink. The last stanza pushes this further. Almost any body part could learn to see, and that seeing becomes a kind of still center inside a storm, something that "plays for keeps." The final lines, "It shines. / It weeps," are short and blunt.
The speaker seems fascinated and slightly unnerved. The mood is eerie but playful, as though perception were something that could break out of the body at any moment, bringing both brightness and sorrow.