I think about hands a lot
mine are soft and have a great capacity
for delicacy I'm told
in some ways it may be true
that I see aspects of the world through touch
through fingertips with eyes closed
so much can be revealed
a tasting of textures and response to
pressure
rough and smooth hot
and cold
wet and dry soft and
hard
making intimacy a living thing that is
physically real
while shaping mental images and sensations
that become response triggers and pathways
to satisfaction and realisation
I think about hands a lot
with horror at the creeping disturbance of
skin
by recurrence of watery pustules rising like
bubbling mud
over two days to burst and form dead slough
patches
painful and bleeding cracked ugliness
unfit either to touch or be touched
a kind of pre-leprosy
unclean unclean
spreading from digit to digit
causing shy unwillingness to explore or to
feel
the textureless shame of a sickness of the
extremities
hidden only by skillful furtiveness
I have been thinking
about the small finger of my right hand
there are small watery pustules rising
some skin has been shed and a painful crack
has opened up along the line of the first
joint
in my kitchen I have a sharpened knife
I have been thinking about it a lot
lately