next
 
 
 

GLAUCOMA
Glaucoma won’t let my mother knit:
fine wool is a problem, her most intricate stitch

no longer viable. Unravelling doesn’t require sight.
Look into her eyeball and you’ll see light

receptors twinkling like stars. Ganglion cells die,
darken the supernovae,

lovely eclipses for others to see
in our intimate, sighted jelly.

On the coast, each village had a different style
of fisherman’s sweater, they say. The tide

reads blackberry stitch like Braille
with dexterous pressure, untangling the wool

of tendons. Tears are a retreating sea
full of dark fish swimming. Knit one, purl three.

Editor's Note: Commissioned for Signs and Humours, edited by Lavinia Greenlaw.