I take myself to see Dr. Janis,
my co-conspirator in eye care,
whose mother had the insightful idea
to spell her daughter’s name
as my mother spelled mine,
which is to say unusually
for a Janice.

How could I not find instant rapport
with a blonde, bespectacled Janis?
And even as my vision declines,
as her thoughtful eyes scan mine
through the big, bug-eyed machine,
I feel well seen.

Someday, should she have to deliver
the news—as another eyecare professional
had to tell my mother—that it is time
to stop driving, I will not be happy,
but I will understand.

I will not rage as my mother did,
unloading on her calm ophthalmologist,
as my mother sputtered, “But I can see!”

Never mind that, weeks earlier,
momentarily blinded by sun streaking
through the windshield, she’d driven
across the road and ended up
on the shoulder, stunned but not hurt.

I have a good idea what’s coming down
this bumpy road of macular degeneration
strewn with glaucoma. Every time I get
behind the driver’s wheel of my mother’s
former car,

I remind myself to not only look carefully
as I ease out of my driveway, or when I gently
pull out of parking spaces, but I also
offer prayers to the eye gods that I not
outlive my vision as my mother did.

Because there’s a world to see,
and I want to drink in every bit of it
with all the vision left in me.