Poetry competition First Prize: Jill Munro – “Iris Pupil”

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.