Inventory of Her Hand
The soft brown hand I’ve never held
contains more wonders
than I know:
fourteen small bones, precisely linked—
I doubt
I’ll ever kiss it, though.
Seventeen cords of golden thread
that move with grace I’ve
never matched—
some named for surgeons, proud and sure,
who
never knew what hands were for.
Five metacarpals hold the line,
eight cobbled carpals stack
like bricks.
They flutter sweetly when she types,
a hundred
thoughts in clever clicks.
The thumb commands her private staff:
opponens,
abductor, and flexor sly—
they lift her cup, they
make her laugh,
they tie her hair or swat a fly.
Her blood flows in a braided stream,
radial, ulnar,
joined in arc—
a soft cathedral, half in dream
beneath her
palm where pulses spark.
Her skin smells faintly—clove and cream,
a cracked old bottle
in her tote.
Each fingerprint, a secret scheme,
a maze, a
spiral, and a note.
I’d kiss it if she’d let me near,
but she just folds it
like a wing,
then disappears—without a tear—
and leaves me
holding... everything.
