Poem: ‘How I Became a Spitfire Pilot during My Cataract Operation’
April 14, 2026
1 min read
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Poem: ‘How I Became a Spitfire Pilot during My Cataract Operation’
Science in meter and verse
By Roger Camp edited by Dava Sobel & Clara Moskowitz
Masha Foya
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For Lawrence J. Geisse, M.D.
Entering the operating theater,
 I climbed onto the gurney
resting my head
      on the mock headrest
a geisha dreaming
 on a woodblock.
The whine of the machine’s descent
            distracted me
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the crosshairs locking in
 on its target
finding myself a fighter pilot
          inside a cockpit canopy.
An exhale of pressure,
 slight as a concubine
kissing an eyelid,
      followed by an ultrasound impact.
My lens spidered, a shattered windshield,
 each fragment of the cataract
dutifully vacuumed
       just as Dr. Ridley
tweezered the splinters of plexiglass
 from the Spitfire pilot’s eyes,
an ace returning from the European theater
               of operations.
The lack of infection
 sparked Ridley’s mind, the man who
would unmask the blind with his invention
               a plastic lens
uncurling inside the eye
 for all to see.
English ophthalmologist Harold Ridley, driven by the need to treat the novel injuries of World War II fighter pilots, pioneered the 1949 solution that earned him global recognition as “father of the intraocular lens.”
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