Dave Bonta starts with a small, ordinary object: the blue plastic eyecup he used as a child, still sitting behind the bathroom mirror. Now that he's grown, it's at eye level, a quiet sign of how much time has passed. He remembers the sting of a speck in his eye, the hot tears, and the relief of cool water once he got his eyelid open.
The poem then takes an odd, tender turn. Even while recalling the relief, the speaker feels a lingering guilt about the water he let spill. He imagines the eye as having reached for "a small piece of the earth," as if looking wasn't enough, and then refusing the tears that might have washed it out. The mood is gentle and reflective, a little humorous, a little wistful. A childhood mishap becomes a thought about how we take the world in, and how we sometimes turn it away.