fingerpainting
when she ate my fingers with hers,
broken bleeding family of tin names,
when the walls fell down.
when colors proceed me but shadows
don’t. each night condensed into
bare naked gloves.
here’s what first taught me the braille
of the deaf landscape, arms and face
and chest and thighs and yes,
unaccountable first sighs when
no body else was speaking me, when
body and truth were both eagersmall.
when they handed her buttons more
honest than reticent words.
but I’d be a centipede if fingers
were counting lies.
when the dirt was hard clay and
fingers grasped the spade for all
their worth, spooned a place
when a cat turned hard dead,
black shirt laid close to her.
same as held your hips inside
my smiles. it rained that night.
when poems were told to speak
fingers did the work.
neil reid © february 2012
part two, of a body series
commentary
Maybe my fingers are more honest than the rest of me. Is it less passion or honesty tied by lies? I think my writing has yet some good manners to set aside in favor of what really is. We folk most oft look to eyes to lips for hope of seeing truth, one to another. Yet it is fingers that do the deeds of our lives more than most, so there’s more and more to listen here. This poem a beginning far more than end.
Maybe some disjointed by appearance but that’s just a briefest history counted on less than ten. But began by one memory, first time another stepped aside from personal boundaries, walked right inside. Some say we spend a lifetime trying to hide away our flaws and a lifetime wanting nothing more than unconditional regard for the whole of us. A drama perhaps? (good humor will also do)
Written to We Write Poems, prompt #93,
Finger painting, The Body, a series, part 2.
Wow, that’s pretty deep in metaphor. I’m not sure that I understood it all.
BTW Braille (not brail)!
Thank you and thank you Viv. Yes Viv, it’s a quilt of sorts, lots of mostly less edited emotional images, close as they arrived. So some raw that way. Trying to “edit” myself less. Splashy then perhaps – and – thank you for saying as you read.
neil
And yes, PS, thanks for correcting me, no, not a small sailing rope!
but I’d be a centipede if fingers
were counting lies.
I think this is just lovely throughout. I like that it’s part mystery; it still feels very deliberate and open to interpretation. Anyway the phrases work so well together the meaning doesn’t need to be obvious.
Thanks. You are both kind and sweet.
And yea, you are reading as I would hope to be taken. Also the way I like to read. Literal understanding isn’t always the first prize. AND or OR, I’m working/wanting more honesty in how I write, then I meet myself still being shy to say some things too obviously – so make impressions if not literal straight lines. Something like that.
neil
It was like flashes shown to you.. to make sense and beauty out of it .. I liked this .. some of the lines were emotionally drawn .. fingers do a lot of talking ..
lovely! the second stanza is incredible; it holds so much force, both visually and linguistically. there’s such a great sense of rhythm throughout the piece, which to me is a meditation on the relationship between hands, memory, and the communication of emotion. thanks for sharing!
I love the metaphor you have used here, Neil. Wonderful piece of writing.
Pamela
nice one Neil….thanks for this
I f fingers could talk, indeed. I wonder if fingers would be more intelligent than the rest of us — would they be more truthful, even, than the rest of us? This poem goes so many different places, moving from love to loss. After a couple of reads, it’s easy to close my eyes and visualize what might have happened in each of these memories.
-Nicole
Tangible, made by your details, traveling through your memories. I enjoy your word choice and purposeful placement. Very good, Neil!
I thought it is evocative without being terribly obvious, the memory associated with the braille of body and I thought it’d be beautiful if it ended with “it rained that night”.
I’m with Irene. I like that imagery. Reading with fingers, the words of a body. Enjoyed this very much.