The Second Eye

First published in Rivet 13, June 2005, in its “luck” issue. Also reprinted in Red Lights 3:1, January 2007, and on the Daruma Museum site in Japan in 2010. Also published in Skylark 5:2, Winter 2017, page 145. After you read this sequence, I invite you to read about Daruma dolls and their second eyes.

 

 

our wrinkled newborn

sleeping in my arms—

how lucky is the sun

to have dawned

this very day

 

 

home from the hospital—

what are the chances

for the baby’s first drive

that all the lights

would be green?

 

 

grandparents arriving

from another country—

in the name-the-baby book

a four-leaf clover

marks his page

 

 

another feeding—

again we count

his fingers and toes

and they’re all

still there

 

 

the baby asleep

beside the Daruma doll—

tomorrow

we’ll paint

its second eye