anatomists say: nets
nest within our eyes
within the nets, pits
contain smaller pits
inside these
convex elevations

we trek to our
interior mountains
for verdigris and carmine
cinnabar, oyster shell
tiger's eye
apatite

*

consider the visible
universe, consider
every referent altered
by my blind spot's birth
closed-eyes / white dwarf
open-eyes / black dwarf

o heredity, o clinically
undetectable smudge—
somewhere, I remain sighted,
somewhere, time's
already spilling pigments
from my nested bowls

__

This poem started in Jane Hirshfield's workshop at the 2017 Napa Valley Writers' Conference in response to Lola Haskins' poem "Of the True Ankle Joint." [Stargardt Disease] runs in my family, and we have yet to determine if I am developing this form of macular degeneration, which usually emerges in youth but also can later in life (and has done both in my family). I am looking at my first draft now, and on it is written my note of Jane's in-class comment: "Revise from the inside—learn the reason you are writing, what it is you're trying to discover—and also from the outside: imagine what this poem would mean to someone who has no context." What I discovered: a deep understanding of eye anatomy and the delightful etymology of its lexicon. The histories of many pigments of antiquity. Star garden: a fond name for how my blind spot looks with my eye closed. I love the irony that this poem is being published with context.