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.
