We lost the poet Kamilah Aisha Moon last year. In this poem, “Cataracts,” she writes about the cloudy vision many of us will experience as we age. The poem starts with a surprising image of the deteriorating eyes as turtles, but the turtle also serves as a metaphor for the physical retreat of the whole body as it crawls toward the “final haze” of death. We move gradually to something larger, ending with a declarative: “There is no surgery for this.” But the poem reminds us of the “sliver of disheveled beauty” and the “66 years of scenery” the eyes have captured.

Cataracts

By Kamilah Aisha Moon

When life scuffs & finally scars the eyes
they become turtles — withdraw inside themselves,

dive inside private marshes, dragging under
the once-girl they belong to, the dewy woman

who rolled them in pleasure, then cried her children
here, blinking back. They retreat into hardness,

she squints at every wound. After all, why this cruel
gauze now? Over 66 years of scenery, fate’s

scattershot survived thus far — have they seen enough,
growing armor that only a highly-skilled violence

can remove? She goes under, begs the rest —
tissue, organs, & membrane to please hold on,

still eager to behold (until that final haze)
some sliver of disheveled beauty. The eyes

of her dreams carapace, zig-zag & buzz trapped
inside latched windows. There is no surgery for this.