Day 1,072

The boy lost an eye
to a piece of shrapnel.
Now he has just one eye
that looks out at his world
of destruction, and another
that cannot see it. That,
instead, looks inward, backward,
forward. That looks
at the way it should
have been: his house
still standing. Other houses
around it, whole. Surrounded
by gardens. His friends
still gathering at the corner
of his tree-lined street,
chatting and laughing.
Waiting for him to come
(with his two bright eyes)
and walk the rest of the way
with them to school.
The eye that can’t see
the outside world
communes at night
with the other eye:
easier to talk
when they’re equal. When
neither of them
is taking in light.
It softens what that eye absorbs,
reminds it hour after hour
as darkness envelops them
that what it beholds in daylight
is temporary. Will be
redeemed. Is not the end.