Naked Vision

Naked Vision

I was sent to fetch an eye

promised for a fresh corneal graft.

At the doctor's rooms nurse gave me

a common paper bag;

in that, a sterile jar;

in that, the disembodied eye.

I sat in Davey Street

on a low brick garden wall

and looked. The eye looked back.

It gazed, lucid and whole,

from its colourless solution.

The window of whose soul?

Trees in St David's Park

refreshed the lunchtime lovers:

riesling gold, claret dark;

late flowers flaunted all colours.

But my friend and I had eyes

only for one another.

GWEN HARWOOD