Self Portrait with Cataracts

Self Portrait with Cataracts

Work of the eyes is done, now
Go and do heart-work
On all the images imprisoned within

– Rilke

Because, by now, art gives his own loss
   back to him, camouflaged
as beauty, because the self,
   distilled, echoes back
through harbor stone and lily,
   through rose-arch
and wisteria, he paints, finally,
   himself retreating
into the foxholes of his eyes,
   his whole face smudged
beneath the cataract's gleam,
   drowning in the broth light,
one eye covered completely
   when he paints,
the other planetary in the atmospheric
   glass, his monocle,
gold-rimmed, radiating scowl-lines
   around the eye, so that when
he places the canvas on the floor
   as if to look on a landscape,
he sees, among the white-tipped reeds
   and the bridge-line
frowning across the wrinkles
   of the face, two birds
where the eyes had been,
   their feathers tucked in,
heads bowed, not moving at all,
   though their feet paddle
desperately beneath. Hovering
   like that – ethereal,
not a self, but a wave
   curled up out of the self,
so its reflection is its source – he feels
   a storm break inside
his face as a light mist rises
   from the paint, the way,
years earlier, the ground floor
   abandoned to the flood,
he stood, upstairs, watching torn
   leaves smeared across
the water, violent and seductive,
   like the trail of clothes
across a bedroom floor, although –
   he remembers remembering
this – it was February, so that he
   was watching, not leaves,
but the ruins of his own uprooted
   garden, a flotilla
of marguerites and bellflower,
   processional of blue
thistle, pink sumac, Alice,
   behind him, shivering
in the bed, feverish, leukemia
   passing through her,
poisonous as color through a leaf,
   the hook of each breath
unstitching something inside
   of her, as if she were becoming
the rattle in the shutters,
   as if she were slowly turning
herself into the window
   he was gazing through,
so that he knew, even then,
   that he would never
not be looking through her,
    each morning in the mirror,
his face laid on top of her face.
   When she died, he prayed,
one night, for whatever comes
   to lean down over him
and pluck the flowers of his sight.
   Going blind, he imagined,
was a way to feel her
   leaving him again, as his first
wife had, his whole life now
   like a fist loosening from
around the moment of his birth.
   But the hand keeps
longing for the weight
   of the amputated brush,
and his hand, like a moth freed,
   finally, from the candle wax
of grief, would unfurl –
   for his lilies, for his own spirit
weaved through the trellis
   of the body – each stroke
from the memory of tendons,
   of light, as now, leaning down
to darken out the eyes,
   he remembers, at the window
again that night, seeing,
   on the surface, like a tiny
lighthouse tumbled from
   the shore, the lantern
he had hung one morning
   in a tree, still lit, the severed
branch holding it up above
   the waves. And how later,
when she grew silent, he held
   a small mirror just above
her mouth, then swiped, almost
   thoughtlessly, a finger
through the breath
   he'd captured on the glass.