INVENTORY OF WHAT THE LEFT EYE SAW
BEFORE THE DROPS TOOK HOLD
1. The ceiling tile with one corner lifting
2. A chart of letters shrinking toward prayer
3. The optometrist's ear, backlit, translucent as a leaf
4. Sixteen magazines fanned like a losing hand
5. The word WELLINGTON reversed in door glass
6. My own lashes, suddenly enormous
7. A clock whose second hand moved
in the wrong direction (or so it seemed)
8. The particular gray that is Sunday
9. A poster of the human eye
looking back at me looking at it
10. Three floaters I have named:
Margaret, the Admiral, and God
11. The ophthalmoscope's light arriving
like a small annunciation
12. Nothing
13. Then: everything, too bright, uncloseable