A Study of Hands

The worker's hands are calloused

all along the flat palm,

tough as tree bark

wearing down the saw's teeth.

The tool thinks itself superior

but like that calloused worker

its victories are all

long sough,

hard fought, and deceptively expensive.

Slowly, slowly, time consumes

leaving little more than

callouses and bone.

Be you made of iron-wrought flesh

or skin tough as nails, you'll know

with time and work

leaving a sawdust trail,

the teeth are the first to go.

The lover's hands are tender,

often more so at the fingertips.

Like hot smoke carried

on cool breeze it twists upon itself,

turning the surface while underneath

a greater heat rises,

gathers together

and boils the sweat,

siphoning lust

and distilling passion.

What remains is the smoke.

Tossed into the air

from fiery friction paths

traced by the lover's hand

along his lover's flesh

leaving them tender

often more so at the figertips.

The ash of the two lovers mix

and settle in the hair

(Where they both know the scent)

and mark the burned paths

(Where they can always be re-traced)

The poets hands are smooth and rough

at the palms and fingertips respectively

and often with a signle callous

at the first knuckle

of the third finger

from either direction.

The palms bleed constantly

like stigmata over stock paper,

pouring blood rich with

pain, pleasure, perseverance, and poetry

till its thick, black, and trailing

down the hand and into the pen

where it cannot be coaxed or cajoled

int extravagant words on plain paper.

It must be choked.

Pressed against that

lonely callous till it bleeds.

And like the worker,

and like the lover

There'll soon be little left

than a broken tool

a disposable body

and a spirit that lasts

in memory alone.