The First Cataract

operation:

I went into hospital at one p.m.
and came out at three,
after efficient, friendly treatment
and everything completely free,
including two kinds of drops I have to
put in four times a day.

Now the world is strangely blue
and very clear, and bright
through the eye which has the new
implanted lens.  Remarkably,
all but one of the senior staff
were the pleasant brown shade
of my cataract  -
the surgeon a very handsome,
young and somewhat haughty
Anglo-Pakistani.
All the lower grades
were pale and local,
which says something about
the Northern Irish gene-pool
and demography.