Some One-Eyed Jacks I've Known
Moshe Dayan, sundry pirates,
a school-friend who lost his left one
in an air-gun shoot-out in the gym.
The squinting batsman who had to twist
his head to see the bowler, and a socialist
martyr half-sighted when fascists
grenaded a pre-war rally in Milan.
These characters from my youth parade
in a blur on the doctor's ceiling.
He's after a splinter, stuck in my iris.
Cotton buds and drops don't do the trick
"I'll have to use a needle", he says,
pleased by this sliver of minor surgery.
"Well, don't slip," I say from the table,
eyeing the ceiling's one-orbed heroes,
half-hoping, just for a moment,
to join their glamorous club.
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