The Key West Golf Course Thinks Out Loud

By Courtney Hitson

Some days I chuck golfers’ fucks especially hard

into the retention pond, so the ripples stack

into indictments, unwieldy for eighteen

holes. The most memorable thefts seize

unseeables: innocence, trust. My wildness

wilts in the background of a suburbanite’s

first swing, his wood like the cleft

of an upturned chin, hogging the sky. I am

a jungle, taken captive, bound 

to buzzcuts. These sandpits,

nostalgic for a time before entropy, before

devolving into litterboxes. Four Rolex’d egos

bemoan an iguana—portly gal—hogging hole-five’s

green. Yes, they’re invasive but can you hold

the talons of his heart’s paw against

man? How to request a scab cease

healing? A lizard not seek the sun?

A man accept what they are given?

About the Author

Courtney Hitson holds an MFA in poetry from Columbia College Chicago and currently teaches English at the College of the Florida Keys. Her poems and non-fiction have appeared in over twenty literary journals including Wisconsin Review, DMQ Review, Route 7 Review, and McNeese Review. Courtney and her husband, Tom (also a poet), reside in Key West, Florida with their two cats.