EYES

I’ve always had eyes for you
looking across a table or a room
but these eyes are failing me now
a fine mechanism breaking down all of a sudden
Like everything else but in its own curious way
described so well by the kind doctor
with a helpful graphic which I’m struggling to make out
how the retina is part of a complicated equation
for visual knowledge and bliss
happy to believe your own eyes
watching birds fly or comets shoot
or slow shadows in a work of art
or a leaf blowing down the street
or other beauty in motion
such as you whirling in your dance from that far away land
we’ve both seen up close.

The vitreous humor has started pulling away now
a not so humorous event                     there’s no rimshot and
I’m not laughing at all
and now there’s tissue and blood floating around in there
just so much detritus getting in the way
like black cobwebs minus the spider
gumming up the works
sounding one more alarm in a series.

Eyes
not letting me see clearly now
the hues and facets of the world I love
Eyes joining other critical elements that are also unraveling
Rusting
then
falling apart.

Not to worry                it’s only the nature of things
It’s what happens sooner or later to us all
The opthalmologist calmly entones
as if that should cheer me up              nature playing tricks
playing with optics
I blink away tears and dilating drops
and squint and close one eye
Not to flirt just
Trying to actually SEE the world I love and maybe even the sentence she has just uttered
that is hanging there in the air like a dark illegible cloud.

5.23.21