POEM: Brown Eyed Boy

Brown Eyed Boy

Brown eyed boy, where are you?

You are nobody I’ve known this life.

We have never stood inside a mirror together —

never climbed the other’s eyes,

never passed the alphabet between us

Never broke anything together like bread.

Not this time.

Not this body.

Not this name.

Where are you, brown eyed boy?

What dune are you standing on,

your feet sinking slow

into what was once an ocean?

I have seen you reaching

through the strangest dark

-a dark so dark it vanishes the dark—

that only the alone know how to make.

Perhaps you are already here —

wearing a white man’s clothing,

your eyes no longer black

but blue from a ransomed country.

As I am poured

into a white woman’s skin,

my eyes gone green

with the translation.

Marni Fraser | 0119.2026

Yuma Arizona | by Marni Fraser

Arizona Desert Vigil Series | 1 of 10