Don’t you ever forget
that you are mine. I claim
you and every crooked tooth,
the mole burned behind
your earlobe. Everything.
I claim even the open water
of your dreams.
.
Even though history tells us
women are not to claim men
as their own,
did you think Kalypso would
just build Odysseus that ship
and stand by with a heart
sick with sorrow?
.
Do not forget she
clothed the hero before
he set out to sea.
These clothes later
sucked him down
enraged stormy water: if you
are not mine
then no one shall
claim you.
•••
Sonia Farmer is a Bahamian who will complete her BFA in Creative Writing at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY, in May 2009. She is the author of two limited edition chapbooks, What Becomes Us and Grow. Her work has appeared in Ubiquitous Literary and Art Magazine and Poui X.
tongues of the ocean 