~painting by Banksy                                     

My Own

Private

Alcatraz

(For Eric Moreland R.I.P.) 

i

My body is an island.

My skin, a stretch of sand.

My hair a tangled grass in wind.

My eyes, in search of land.

 

My nose, a trained cadaver dog.

My mouth, an unlocked door.

My lips conceal their teeth

like bones beneath a floor.

 

My tongue, a saltwater eel.

My throat, a secret tunnel.

My hands can sink or swim

while my fist can form a muscle.

 

My feet, good for standing ground.

My toes, the first to go.

My mind the next to follow

what my heart already knows.

 

ii

My body is a vessel.

My skin is watertight.

My hair, a signal flare.

My eyes, a glass for sight.

 

My nose keeps its own diary.

My mouth conceals what’s valuable.

My lips remember other smiles

since my own has long grown fallible.

 

My teeth are left to untie knots,

my tongue for tasting brine.

My throat’s now sore from crying out.

My hands best make a sign.

           

My fingers are for letting go.

My feet for flapping foam.

My toes for dipping into water

before braving the sea for home.

 

iii

My body is a lifeboat.

My skin, a watertight hull.

My hair a waving seaweed

reflected in the eye of a gull.

 

My nose reads this world

like a book my mouth recites

with lips wrapped round each word

so as to guide me to new heights.

 

My tongue has now a taste

for a solitude I’d never known.

My hands now ease into their prayers

though I know not where they go.

 

My soul was made for dreaming

with the intention of escape.

The fact that I‘m no longer prisoner  

leaves me free to reshape my fate.

 

5/2/23