The Islander

I remember when the mornings are still green, and I want to be Lorca’s heart.
I remember lemons and teeth, gums and child’s blood, long legs and sugar tunes.
Already the black ice chills its armies sleeping under.

I remember phantom kisses and wheel deaths, mangoes and snake frost.
I am not weak but I am not strong; I am the prelude to my child’s ghost.
The armies seek an older skin; they store my shrill joys in jars.

I remember no-more-faith, blue attic writing, handprints on fire.
Each day you cry wolves’ tears for the sheepskin you’ve been adorned.
I swallow my eyes alive and grasp the leader’s stale hands.

I remember chocolate names and love in jags, Byzantium waning, death by lamb.
I am nowhere’s girl if nowhere is your home for fattened tongues.
Loved so by lightning as it jolts my heart to sleep/breathe/sleep.

I remember butter smiles and hush-hush skin, rebel blasts and streamed mutinies.
I am not the puppet I string along; not your girl with the green heart.
I gave her up a thousand to none, a murder you won’t detect.

I will remember the plastic sunshine that I gambolled in for you all.
I will remember the love, the kind words and the highest heights of our laughs.
Most of all I will remember how all that you loved
Were just strips of a dead girl’s island.