This poem originally appeared in the Spring 2014 edition of Interstice.
The Serpent in My Eye
I still recall the day
it uncoiled its glassy shaft
upon the world
as I dashed down the alley—
a crooked snake that twined
at the edge of things,
floating away from my focus,
haloed by strange, transparent bubbles.
I was five. It seemed a sign
from the unknowable vastness,
a mark or brand, a dark sigil,
companion along a sinful road.
The viper never left.
It burrowed.
Ten years later I learned
its names: myodesopsia.
Musca volitans. Floaters
Made stark by astigmatism.
But by then the wyrm
was curling in dark corners
of my soul,
well beyond the reach
of corrective lenses,
scalpels,
lasers.