There Is No Fixing It

I have an eye that weeps.
It started a decade ago,
increases with each passing year.
Cold air sets it off.

It is a biologic process,
one not dependent upon tender feeling,
yet this poet’s eye cannot help
but see metaphor everywhere,
even when blurred by unbidden tears.

Should there exist
a medical intervention
to cease the steady flow,
I think I would decline it.

Why shouldn’t I cry?
Cherubic baby’s face emerges
from behind father’s shoulder,
so evident her dead mother’s visage.
Belligerent fifteen-year-old disappears
with her infant, having been, for years,
pimped out by her cousin.

Shouldn’t we all be allowed to weep?
Public radio matter-of-factly promises
to tell me about the corpse trade in Iraq.
Glow of the sun turns poison,
the least among us most harmed,
but none of us saved.

I am not supposed to allow
the luxury of despair
to leave me paralytic.
I will try.

Nevertheless, allthesame,
I weep.


(cc) Karen G. Johnston