Pre-Elegy for my Eyesight

By Emily Light

How this afternoon can it be too bright to        read
when not fifteen years from now                          black stallions
will gallop in from                                                        the edges
and shake their manes across                              my vision?
Already I walk into a                                                   dark room and gasp,
I grasp at my body's diameter,                               search by touch
for form and content to see                                    with fingertips
what the cones of my eyes have                           lost.
Today I use empty cupped palms to                    shield
my brows from the glare of mid-June                 brightness.
Dear darkness, please                                               wait in the wings
a while                                                                              longer.

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Emily Light’s poetry can be found in such journals as Inch, Lake Effect, Midway Journal, Cumberland River Review, and RHINO, among others. She teaches English and lives in New Jersey with her husband and son.