one of my favourite poems

A Different Point of View
by anna hood

‘Prove it,’ she said. ‘Prove that you love me.
You’re always going away
leaving me alone.’
‘A gift,’ he said, I’ll give you a gift
to prove my love,’
and he stuck his eye in the hollow
beside her right ankle.

At first it was uncomfortable
the eye rolling
fluttering its eyelashes.
Not that it was intrusive
it wasn’t. It never interfered
with the straps on her shoe
and even though it had to remain
shut under the white socks
when she ran and even though
it blinked furiously in the shower
when soap ran down her leg
it never complained.

She grew used to it, fond of it even
it was company of a sort
when he went off on his trips
a black patch marking the spot
where the eye used to be.
She started using baby soap
stopped wearing socks
and for fear of razoring it away
let the hair on her right ankle grow
long, rather like a silky bellbottom
and - for shame - she stopped
wearing panties. The eye would blink
its eyelashes quivering against
the long hair on her right ankle
send a shiver right up her right leg.

People remarked on it, her strange tattoo.
Different from a rose or butterfly they’d say.
She’d lower her eyes, glance down,
twisting her ankle this way and that.
The eye would wink
glance slyly up under her skirt
make her shiver.

It completely changed her point of view.