Hands
Nowadays I measure my envy in hands:
I look at the young men's sharp-boned digits
or the white, fluttering pencils of girls;
I notice the labouring, dust-skinned
tools of workmen slumped in the tube,
or the businessmen's tight-strained
triangles knuckled on their newspapers;
I inspect the plump fingers in women's laps.
And I watch, cat-like, to see how they make
those effortless moves: the young girls' darting
hither and thither, a dance of butterflies
lifting and pausing, random as the shrill
of their laughter into their phones;
while the lean men's open and shut, point
and twist, underlining the dramas of thought;
and even old women's fly with every stitch.
But mine, mine do not dance any more:
Mine are becoming witches' claws,
gnarled and knobbled like the split-patterned
boles of grand old chestnut trees,
in - and overlaid with growths and warts
and goblinesque protuberances;
they barely move: they want to curl up
into themselves and nurse their pain.
I do not like being envious. I will
spend more time contemplating
the drawing of those grey-blue hands
Albrecht Durer made so carefully:
they are not particularly straight,
but they are human, beautifully
veined, and in the pose of prayer
so calmly, contentedly still.
Page(s) 21
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