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Of Complex Design 

Susan Nguyen

At first, I didn’t believe her
even though Susie’s left eye
was often slow. It glazed over

when our teacher, Mrs. Nagy,
addressed the green blackboard
with her pointer stick
tipped with a cracked red apple,

or when someone read their mother’s
handwritten note scrawled
on a paper lunch bag.

I was 10 when Susie
finally told me her left eye
was made of glass.

She took it out each night,
wiped it clean,
floated it in a glass of water.

She showed me once
how it spun like a speckled marble,
green and then blue—
a miniature globe

she jolted from its axis.
Each morning she held the world,
half hidden, in her fingertips.