MiPo Poetry Board Best of 2002

Dark-Handed Task

I raise my muscles, coil
and stretch myself
in the dance-ways of this work.
Every grip is taught
by handshakes of men
and women, young and old,
by the casual intimacy
of my hand, held before
mother, lover, or in defense
colliding with the fist
of a drunken man
I have never met.

You couldn't tell
that my hands have been raised
in jealous anger before,
slamming again and again
into the eyes of a boy
who sometimes before
felt to me like a brother,
but they have.

They have stolen countless
times, have been colored
with blood from myself,
my friends, my lovers, my foes,
my family.
Squeezed razors, soaked in tears,
have hugged thousands of pills
and bottles as if they were
a small, delicate bird
that I feared would quickly
fly away, if I let it,
and it always did.

My hands have changed
to beet red from
forming snowballs,
have warmed themselves
on a woman's breasts
have been smeared into gravel
when I've been pushed from behind,
have typed until the fingertips
grew callused and sore.

But again, they are here,
the extremities of myself,
the extremities of my actions.
The delicacy, beauty and rage
of a human expressed
so rawly by them.

Today I rake the yard
of scattered maple leaves.
Each time I try to look
up the hill, gauge how much
work remains, the sun blocks
my vision. What do I do?
I raise one hand to my brow,
trust, perhaps foolishly,
perhaps not, that my hands
will limit my chances of illusion,
illuminate my limited chances.

Dedication for my stepfather, who taught me, with superhuman patience and an eerie, innate ability to harmonize different needs within himself, that the most sophisticated way that anyone can use their hands is as a tool for creation.

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featuring the art of Georgia O'Keeffe