pickled apples (for f.)

there's death in your left eye
that not even its companion
can make right

it hangs low
it drags into the past
it's scratched
sometimes yellow
often red
more than brown

your brow dips
often dives
and it closes
leaving everything wrong
in the open

a stye makes
your elongated eyelashes
curl and clump
lathered with
the weight of brilliance
a fear of the body
a helpless want for intimacy
that only that dying eye
can scream

but even in infection
in all that is ugly
there is failed beauty
there is that eye
struggling
it lifts, extends
speaks
a word
and becomes again