{"id":26,"date":"2009-04-11T20:58:41","date_gmt":"2009-04-12T03:58:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/basweeney.com\/writings\/?p=26"},"modified":"2009-04-11T20:58:41","modified_gmt":"2009-04-12T03:58:41","slug":"island-man","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/basweeney.com\/writings\/?p=26","title":{"rendered":"Island Man"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Barbara Sweeney<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In the great stories of love<br \/>\nwritten by men<br \/>\na man always comes to the rescue<br \/>\njust in time \u2013<br \/>\njust when the girl is about to<br \/>\ndie and awful death or marry<br \/>\na man with black hair.<\/p>\n<p>Archetype, unexhausted<br \/>\nby the paunchy denials of middle age,<br \/>\nlean into these limbs.<br \/>\nTell me all kinds of gauzy lies.<br \/>\nBe my island man,<br \/>\nmy adventurous tide<br \/>\nto a place where the air is soft,<br \/>\nteeth are white,<br \/>\nand fish are friendly.<br \/>\nWhere native women speak a gentle tongue<br \/>\nand tolerate me<br \/>\nbecause of your fair hair.<\/p>\n<p>Your mastery of the physical world<br \/>\nwould ensure a roof carefully thatched,<br \/>\na floor expertly woven from reeds.<br \/>\nThere would be coconuts and quiet bells,<br \/>\nand wine, and eventually<br \/>\nI would quit drinking coffee,<br \/>\nforget my pride,<br \/>\nand, fluid and unshod,<br \/>\nlearn to work with my hands.<\/p>\n<p>Heart, rainbow, shell,<br \/>\nsand as white a fingernail moon,<br \/>\nthe currency of fairytales flowing between us,<br \/>\nours would be a place without boredom, fatigue,<br \/>\nor the longing for children.<br \/>\nRound as a bowl,<br \/>\nsafe as a spoon,<br \/>\ngreen shade and pales stones<br \/>\nrimming our lagoon,<br \/>\nhere an island&#8217;s perfect fruit would grace our afternoons:<br \/>\nfragrant, unreachable, ripe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Barbara Sweeney In the great stories of love written by men a man always comes to the rescue just in time \u2013 just when the girl is about to die and awful death or marry a man with black hair. Archetype, unexhausted by the paunchy denials of middle age, lean into these limbs. Tell [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-island_man","category-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/basweeney.com\/writings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/basweeney.com\/writings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/basweeney.com\/writings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/basweeney.com\/writings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/basweeney.com\/writings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/basweeney.com\/writings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27,"href":"http:\/\/basweeney.com\/writings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26\/revisions\/27"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/basweeney.com\/writings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/basweeney.com\/writings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/basweeney.com\/writings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}