Cataracts

Nothing has been pretty

since I switched to contacts,

since I stopped picking petals for love,

but rather to roll and inhale them

once they’re dried and tinged

with nostalgia.

It starts from innocent things:

Fire was for s'mores.

Now the only things smokey

are my black lungs when I drive

in the backwoods,

where the boys used to go.

The optometrist asks me

to read the letters on the wall.

I gaze at the box of light

and say raspberry, sailboat, time.