Consider the hand how it collects
what is precipitate enough to be carried
down from the heart. Its text
accumulates grain by grain
old hate held love’s
yellow ribbon pain
forgiven in a
fair-wind red sky.
Does it lie
open, a plain story of what was done?
Or is it shut dammed aching
to break? Take the hand
as atlas of influx – what came loose
and where it struck.
The hand is told
by what we choose: a crowbar
to rescue the world’s last kitten;
scissors that sever the wires to a heart.
Which river you give the wounds you cherish,
all that was meant in each fluid vow.
And your fingers,
eloquent as current –
what flows out of them now?
