Deadeye by George Held

I carry the corpse
of my blinded right eye
in its socket,

dead weight
in my skull, optic nerve
dead, sight beyond

reclamation, fated
for cremation
with my organic

remains, so I’m grateful
for my “good” eye,
my ocular,

with which I view
what’s left of
the visible world.



George Held regularly publishes poems, stories, translations, and book reviews in journals such as Blue Unicorn, Home Planet News, Transference, and American Book Review and has received ten Pushcart Prize nominations. His new book, his twentieth, is Dog Hill Poems (Seattle, 2017).