Double Floor

…one sometimes does have a sense that
there is a double floor someplace…
—W. G. Sebald

The dual pupiled
frog eye can
scan for food
and trouble
above and below
the water at once.

Many forms of
doubleness serve
local purposes

lulling us to
the essential
focal baffling
inherent in
experience

how the splits
keep happening.

—Kay Ryan

Kay Ryan’s most recent book is The Best of It: New and Selected Poems.