hands – other animals

Sonnet

what prize did you hope to hold in those smooth
hands for the plan sketched in cloud and unbuilt—
what melody might have flown forth if you
freed yourself from petty politics of
the boardroom and tested those scrawny wings—
but you sat with a job safe as socks and
a single number near the cold solstice

now in the damp the aches where you bend while
those black glacier teeth topple in tepid
tea you mumble to the cat it wasn’t
all bad these bloody feet could still march this
hand salute the lurking shadow who smiles
at the coughing cubicle dwellers soon
to be churned into cheap fertilizer

no more synthetic motor oil
milkshakes from now on just
the nectar of golden
suffocation under a sudden
shower of compliments
for a one-star review

and my hands remain clean. Though
this knife of years

and never chose to explain. To this day
nothing grows there

I sit and watch the trees
in summer’s sticky green
the cicada hum then
stop suddenly the dog
sighs everything a bit
slow and tired is there some
light from this I really
don’t know but my hands this
evening ached for a prayer

at the organic cafe unsure of your unwrinkled hands scraggly long hair scraping fine features the constellations of pimples your rough shirt dark stained apron standing tall and to the side you grant a glance and goddess you were all beauty pink cherry trees burst and burst my eyes wide as fried eggs

the road unraveling the load of papers blistered from my hands spent imagining lines to get out of funerals

my eyes erased with no lack of formality to excuse the fragility of those hands that are now obviously flippers

a fish through the hands will write a list of future accomplishments gulp the last tepid tea and remember I’m somehow the narrator though my training is in watch repair once a thriving industry in days when many people were killed by and these days you don’t know who to believe when you take your pants off but that’s the way it’s always been at least when you climb that tree to look at the moon you can just remember the sound of the first sparrow through her curls

I say the name but hidden in brown fields green peeks its head around the corner. She lets the light back slowly as ever. We are heavy with eggs. Nests being assembled. The wide water is clear and dark and deep inside something undeniable stirs.

trying to hold on to one thing in the mind with hands too small

build a little temple in the well of the clavicle golden light honey fig bread wine maybe this book will run through the clouds we see tending to the is it only animals who live on the mountain

storm in the forecast & all these chapped lips for the best adverbs to fry up this or any other burger so why does it have to fill up the whole page ants build cities with mouths as small as we could wish for

where a tooth unrecognized as rotten should worms long to chew as though a star covered in gauze in the forest shout what from the shadow of a younger life of a beneath centipedes cry and yes still these empty hands in the snow

the newscaster’s hands gathering clouds