BACK OF THE EYE  

Is it faith, or the luck of untaught fingers
that brings to life an Italian countryside
on tracing paper, with so few strokes of a fine-
nibbed pen. Abstract the universe
on a retina sparked with constellations,

luck always draws you to the right window,
carries you up the abandoned stair
to a tarred rooftop where someone, years ago,
waited for a comet. Lottery of nights,
when will it ever pass again?