Corrective Lenses, and: Eleven Years After, and: Everything Golden Is Spilled

Corrective Lenses

I miss my astigmatism, cubist distortionthat tells a more complex truth—visionunprefixed by "re" sharperthan vision corrected, waterin cataract fracturing light into rainbows—how thought locks up when boxedinto a square, white page.I miss my first drafts, early years unglossedby marginalia. Now, let's triangulate:start with what Mom taught meabout right (white beforeLabor Day) and wrong (white after).Add in Dad's lesson, how to livea whole lifetime in hock. Then,the blind luck of a train that arrivedto carry me off from the wrong sideof the tracks. Measure the distancefrom home to no money dividedby winning the marrying-well lottery.There's Lasik and other high-tech fixes,peeling layers like a sweet onion.Give us a glass eye or two, to spareothers the sight of dead eyes, dead eyes,dead eyes—Orphan Annie, Joe Palooka,their Basilisk gaze—can you believethose guys were meant to be funny?In second sight, the eyes speak in tongues.That goes with blind faith, and the blindleading the blind along a long limbalready beginning to bow. And below,

empty boots and bones siftingsand in an endless desert, all of whichwould be less of a problemif only our empty-eyed guides were notalso deaf to the sounds of any protest,and to the world's suffering, numb.

Eleven Years After

I braided rosemary and lavenderwith sage, ground

cinnamon and cloves with allspiceand myrrh, unwound

the length of shining linen, dippedits folds in water swooned

with jasmine and lemongrass. Butwhen I reached down

for your kite-weight, to bind your lightbundle of bones with all

that was sacred, I found only flown ash;long before I began to look

for you, Mama, you were washedof color and scent, already gone.

Everything Golden Is Spilled

I once had a child who would readthe stars or sow corn. Teach school.

Build bridges, grow into a manloving a woman, a child of his own.

He was born and his hour was silver,new moonlight strewn

on dark ground. Pearls, seeds, wide banksof clouds. His bright hair.

His damp, sleeping lap-weight, his scalp'syolky chuff, the tug

that began at my nipple and drew onsomeplace deeper,

the universe contracted to pull of suckand glow. Grain,

drops of rain, dreams. His years, for a time,ripened like wheat

toward a great, gold, slanting, weightedwith seed.

When did the arc bend past looking forward?When did the fruit hollow

into chaff? When did my child lose his holdon his last word?

I want that bud of boy back, packedwith what might yet bloom,

each sepal spiraled, sealed, and nothing,nothing revealed.

Each birth is worth its weight in loss, yes,of course; still,

I'd give every grain to hold him again—his petal hand

on my neck, his eyes two blue plates tippedto the sun—light,

light all around us—mote moments gilded,giving glitter

to dust. One slip of grip, and the seasonhas turned. All gone,

all drained down to nothing; we are stillin it, but the world has grown old.