Poetry competition First Prize: Jill Munro – “Iris Pupil”
18 Jul 2019 / News
Iris/pupil
With my eyes shut it could be easy
to believe I am white-stick blind,
hidden in the dark pool of lids
closed over diagram parts labelled
in science labs that smelt of Bunsen burners:
the iris/pupil, the white sclera, vitreous humor
spilling from the sheep’s eye
I dissected with a blade. How my hand trembled,
how I am glad hers didn’t ─
the Spanish surgeon who sliced
into my eye to re-paste the retina
like wallpaper, pin it with a gas bubble,
start rods and cones back to work again,
so those dozens of black fly floaters, disco-light
flashes that revealed my detachment
could clear, like motes disappeared from sunrays.
I open my eyes, view clearly through
my kitchen window the return of a golden-eyed flock.
