Keep an Eye Out

My mother had a friend with a glass eye.

I worried a lot about what would happen

if it fell out.

Was it like a marble --

pretty but useless --

made for games I didn’t understand?

I wondered what it would feel like

to hold your eye

in the palm of your hand.

Could it read your fortune

through the cracks in your fingers,

or like a worry stone, soothe fears?

I tried not to imagine what would happen

if, startled, she dropped it --

cats taking it for a toy --

shoved under the sofa,

pawed at, and then forgotten.

Now I realize

the glass eye was not for her.