Hands
Hands
Dusk is when I think of you
tying together the tag ends
of your day.
I sit, my body
a meditation on solitude,
contained, silent, still
waiting in the chill of a
fading afternoon, playing
with images:
Your hands
negotiating traffic madness
of highways stained in yellow
evening light;
Sea crossings that carry you
to your safe harbour, the place
to which I have no key.
Hands
command the steel edge
of a knife,
perform magic on the dailiness
of vegetables, conjure wizardry
from the mediocrity of
grocery shelves.
Pickup sticks of cucumber,
carrots, avocado,
the soft slide of
oil on Romaine, the dark blood
of beets:
This place where
you perfect your universe.
Hands
wander like nomads over
the keyboard, rebel fingers type
misspelled messages, create
an alphabet of thoughts across
the miles
to me.
My fingers fly through a sea
of words, diving
like thin, bleached bones of
sea birds
curved against the wind.
Words are my world, sometimes
a land mine between us, sometimes
a garden
where truth blooms, always
a pull toward some distant
golden past.
But I save the best image
for last, savour it
like clots of
pink cream on a birthday cake:
Your hands
dance across the shadow
of my heart, tender
as the wind
with harmonies that shimmer
like raindrops from
your fingertips.
Edythe Anstey Hanen
September 26, 2009