The Naked Eye

The least touchable of all things,
it wears our dwindled world
like a prayer on a pin, shies
away from the slightest dust,

the stray lash, a blur of flies.
Our own hands are never pure enough,
We balance lenses on our fingers
poised near the shuddering surface.

Still it would be everywhere, this eye,
in its pool the black anemone
blooming: you understand:
how it stares hours in the dim

TV light, reluctant to close,
turns red with so much going forward.
Even in our sleep, shadows
startle from the path it blazes.

By Bruce Bond