What Age Brings
Jalina Mhyana

It’s been coalescing
on the focus of his eye for months,
an innermost lid drawn between him
and the comforts of home
he has always known by sight.

In daylight he tilts his head to see,
filtering images where cataract is thinnest
along the milky edge of hidden iris.

He sees only an aura of my body
as he lays against me: my head,
hands, and legs but no middle, his blindness
negating me with widening scope.

Soon I’ll be just a voice, a smell,
a familiar ghost
he’ll bump his nose against.

When our bedside lamps give way to sleep
his stronger senses awaken,
painting a picture of the dark world
with smells and sounds.

His tail swipes children’s fingerprints
from the walls
in the blind of night, reclaiming
the corridors for himself.

At the close of each day
he greets me with surest footing,
his faith restored
that we are both whole
and blind in the democracy of night.

First published in Möbius