My Fleeing Hands
I switch on the lamp.
H, I had two different thoughts, one of ceasing to be.
“I’m sorry, I connect nothing with these words.”
W fails to recognize H at the station
and H writes that this only reenacts a trauma
in childhood where his mother would pretend not to recognize him
and H would say, But Mama, it’s me
it’s your H.
Here, under the dim café light the surgeon is a solicitor for wounds.
H fails to recognize the hand of St. Paul
who hands me a translation.
“I’m sorry, I connect nothing with these words.”
Nothing, mind you, excludes the possibility
everything organized according to
whether you’re happy or unhappy.
If a dead person sits up
what worries me is: my fleeing hands.
Here Under the Dim Cafe Light
Try to remember
the hand is, among other things, a complex symbol
it comes thru the window it comes thru the ages
it stops for awhile it rests it becomes dated detached
it begins to rot the rings come off
we go after each other
the hand badly placed, the fingers crisped
useless as holes underwater
a living room the dead walk.
When they ask my name, I want to know, exactly
the position of their hands.
They are inside me where I can’t see them.
They get out everyday and then jump back in.
