Writing Poetry

Kinereth Gensler

After William Stafford

It was lost for good, I thought, the writing, but no,
as the poet says and I quote, it is like a very faint
  star,
if you look straight at it you can't see it but
if you look a little to one side it is there.
It's that speck, the floater in my right eye
torn from the back of the retina and lodged
a little to the right of my vision. The particle
I kept trying to blink away and couldn't,
nothing but irreversible loss, damage,
until the eye became habituated, and I forgot.
Now, to bring it back I stare, unfocused,
into a middle distance. The speck floats,
steady as a planet.