Corneal Graft
For all the eye specialists I’ve seen – in varying degrees of haziness – over the years,
and for the anonymous donor who gifted me his/her vision, in something like the way
succeeding generations of writers do
My vision’s been where I haven’t. I’m but a go-between.
When my cornea frosted over, I saw an optician (blurred).
A part of me has seen things I have never seen.
My eye lost its glistering green, took on a foggy sheen
Like that of a dreamish moonbeam, oceanly stirred.
My vision’s been where I haven’t. I’m but a go-between.
That whiteness eclipsed my eye when I was thirteen.
Words on pages slurred; even girls turned smudgy, wayward.
A part of me has seen things I have never seen.
Kerataconus, intoned the specialists. The word seemed
Vague as the world around me. Faces looked the same. Absurd.
My vision’s been where I haven’t. I’m but a go-between.
If the cornea’s a tiny jellyfish in the gene
Pool blind fate stirs, believe it blind luck also occurs.
A part of me has seen things I have never seen.
The doctors grafted while I was drugged and dreamed
– I still do – of the life-before-me my cornea’s conferred.
My eye is like a mind’s eye. I’m but a go-between.
A part of me has seen things I have never seen.
About this poem
To celebrate the Quincentenary of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, twenty-one Scottish poets were commissioned by the Scottish Poetry Library to write poems inspired by the College’s collections and work. Like surgeons they have used ‘the hand that sees’, but in this case the writing hand that acts at the prompting of insight and imagination. The poems and their comments, alongside photographs of items that inspired them, were published in The Hand that Sees: Poems for the quincentenary of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, edited by Stewart Conn, and published by the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh in association with the Scottish Poetry Library in 2005.
Author’s note:
I actually caught the disease when I was eleven or twelve – took a little necessary poetic licence in saying I was thirteen – and had the corneal graft when I was thirteen or fourteen (I was in hospital for a few months). I think techniques have improved considerably; for example, I believe they use dissolvable stitches nowadays whereas in my day they were actual stitches that were removed some weeks/months after the operation. I wondered whether there was a danger the front of my eye might fall out. Anyway, every optician I’ve ever seen has commented on what a good job the surgeon did. Shortly before the operation an uncle of mine told me (jokingly, I didn’t realise) that after the operation my right eye would be a different colour. I thought this was really cool, and was slightly disappointed after the operation!
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Caoimhin MacNèill
Kevin MacNeil
Kevin MacNeil is a novelist, poet and playwright, now lecturing in creative writing at the University of Stirling.Kevin MacNeil
