Monday, February 14, 2011

They Will Take My Island

by Evie Christie


Over there was a father, a father's things, here
thick folds of fresh cut hair, piss, the cool ceramic.
This a girl's thigh, that patchwork quilt, a bare breast.

There you'll find a keyhole, the violence
of oak, a bare eyeball (your own eye!). A mother's hard-
wired palm.

Where can you exist? Sure, there's the matter
of birthright: they planted your brother's brain in that plot,
lost your father around here somewhere--you might track
his glass eye with your molars
in an electrical storm.

Is there space for you? Finger the map, lose
yourself here: this is an eye, mid-blink, the first
pulse of blood in your hand cocked dick, and this, your boyhood
room. Get lost
with them: the breasts and eyes (made
up), the perfumed thighs.

What did they find in the walls
of that artery, the locket's autopsy,
the shotgun's lovestruck path?

In this ballpark, a wisdom tooth,
a brassy band, a vow and this
was your island. They will take my island, too.