Island Body by Richard Blanco

 ISLAND BODY

by Richard Blanco

Forced to leave home, but home
never leaves us. Wherever exile
takes us, we remain this body made
from the red earth of our island—
our ribs taken from its montes—
its breeze our breaths. We stand
with its palmeras. Our eyes hold
its blue-green sea. Waterfalls
echo in our ears. On our wrists,
jasmine. Our palms open, close
like its hibiscus to love, be loved.

We thrive wherever we remain true
to our lucha—hustle of our feet
walking to work as we must,
oily hands fixing broken beauty
as we must, soiled hands growing
what we must, or cutting what
must be cut. Our pockets filled
with the island’s sands and pulse
of its waves, with the gossamer
dew and dust of its sunrises,
with the song of its sinsontes
and its son nested in our souls.

Wherever the world spins us,
home remains the island that
remains in us. Its sun still sets
in our eyes. Its clouds stay still
above us, our hands still hold
its tepid rain. We’re still caught
in its net of stars, still listen to
its moon crooning above its dirt 
roads. We’re its rivers, the hem
of its coast and lace of its sierras,
its valleys’ windsong, its vast
seas of sugarcane fields. We're
our island's sweetness as bitter
as the taste of having to leave it.