She plucks out her eye while all are asleep and offers it, open palm,
in a dream not even quite sure its components will keep, survive
sanctimony, squeeze or the scream. But you collected yourself.
Cupped it with care, like a fledgling plucked from the fresh snow.
Measure formaldehyde. Preserve one half of a stare. Take it
wherever you go. Inject its iris with formalin in a homespun glass
orb sewn atop a porcelain face. Paint a scarce baby brow to crown
this cyclopian stare you have found a new way to embrace. Debased
its clouded mate too degraded for love — not even by you with a
paternal heart. Said you’d never leave her. It was true, in part.
Kristin Garth is a womanchildish Pushcart, Rhysling nominated sonneteer and a Best of the Net 2020 finalist, the author of THE MEADOW (a novel from Alien Buddha Press, October 2022) and 26 more books.