Map Dot Fingerprint Dystrophy

Wake when you hear the door open
and her sobbing, frightened she is
about to lose her sight, my love
grateful for her friend’s arrival,
the beautiful nurse her own lost daughter,
here to drive her to the doctor
after the torture of the sleepless day,
the sleepless night, agony of shut brows,
after the doctor told her she would heal:
You had your cornea cut this morning
to remove the cataract, it's normal–
I can’t see! she cried on the cordless phone
and was admonished to give the eye time
to heal, get some rest . . . She falls over books
that are everywhere. If I fell she would
help me find my feet. We do not age well.

I know now I can do nothing
without her. Is it as though Jocasta
fell blind to see her son sharing her bed
after killing his father with the Sphinx
on the goat path? I know nothing that heals.
If I know stories that are evidence
of what I do if I have luck,
I can imitate Oedipus
and she in her black negligee,
her nails painted red, her olive skin
having loved many men, now mine alone
praying she will be spared until she sees
what it will be to grow old on this earth.
When her eyes won’t weep she breaks into sobs,
led through the door into cool air
by our friend whose touch heals and guides her home.

(30 June 2011)

copyright 2011 by Floyce Alexander