O.D.

No one ever really thinks about vision, hell
if you can see there is no reason to do so.
Even the word, ocular is one we only hear
in connection to devices, think binoculars.
And yet we live in an ocular world, even linguists
recognized this and created semiotics.
People like me think of vision all of the time.
You do that when all that was right
about your vision begins to cease to be so.
People function with only one hand,
even if they can’t claim to be ambidextrous.
So I never thought I’d given up
my visual dexterity even when its
namesake eye lost its acuity, I was clever
enough to work around it, adroit
in capturing images and erasing the defects
the right eye took such pleasure in introducing.
They called it neuroplasticity, I called it magic
with more than a bit of psychic alchemy.
But it was no parlor trick and my life
went on much as it had before the eye
lost its dexterity – everything was still alright.

O.S.

But now something more sinister
is taking hold, something that has
left me losing vision the fellow eye,
and my work arounds are not nearly
as effective, neuroplasticity be damned.
Where once I could overlay the defects
of the one eye with the correct vision
of the fellow, the fellow has joined
the game and I shouldn’t be surprised
for the left is always presaging trouble.
I wasn’t ambushed by this development,
its approach was never insidious, but that
makes it no less sinister, and as my vision
slowly slips away I am left with wondering
how you cope with going from binocular
to monocular and now likely saying goodbye
to ocularity once and for all time .

First published in FLARE Magazine, Issue 3, June 2025
https://flaremagazinecom.wordpress.com/issue-3/

A bit of explanation. For several years I have been dealing with Age Related Macular Degeneration. It progressed in my right eye to the point that I lost central vision in that eye due to geographic atrophy (I still have peripheral vision). As often happens, geographic atrophy has now affected my left eye (oculus sinister, what a nice name) and while I am being treated with a new drug that will slow its progression, I will eventually lose my central vision in that eye as well. But even now, with its minimal overall effects, I now see a world that you never can and there is something to be said for novelty, isn’t there?