the king of Marmaris

by Carson Wolfe

He lifts me onto his blue suede shoes,

for two weeks a year, a father 

at a wedding, dancing me across 

the sunbaked boardwalk into his bar,

where I tell anyone who will listen

Elvis is my daddy.

I am blonde, blue as the Turkish eye 

jangling on my bartered bracelet.

Against the two medjools of his, 

It’s evident I am temporary 

as the tribal tattoo orbiting 

my belly button.

This year, his absence is a song

I know all the words to. His sequined 

suit hangs over our holiday, 

a white cloud blocking the sun. 

The ocean breeze fills it with life 

and it dances on the wire hanger, 

as if the fabric longs for his 

gyrating hips, the way he flexed 

the damp animal of his chest 

and strummed a woman’s 

bleached hair as she cruised by.

This is how he got customers. 

It’s how he got my mother, 

though her curls are a palette 

as foreign as his. 

The other Brits assume her 

his wife, ask in shouty English 

which direction the supermarket is.

Mum says prison in this country 

isn’t like back home. I think I know 

what she means, 

he’ll have everyone

in the cell block dancing 

to the jailhouse rock. 

Carson Wolfe is a Mancunian poet. In 2021, they were an Aurora prize winner and a Button video contest winner. Their work has appeared or is forthcoming with Fourteen Poems, Rattle, The Penn Review, and Button Poetry. You can find them on Instagram @vincentvanbutch.