Hands

River slagging mud high the swelter humping its leg again, a rack pack of flies stealing thoughts, I try to focus, but everything is listing sideways. I focus on your hands. You’ve dirt under your nails again. You see me see your hands. You slide them under your legs and sit on them.

It’s possible. You can choose to love a boy who lives on this road, on this block. He can work just a block over. A smaller life, simple in gesture and what are you going to do tonight, nothing more than be quiet with him. The birds in the branches have found their footing, though they searched for it longer than you think.

I love your dirty hands, don’t you see. Look at my tracing paper lantern origami hands, delicate, die-from-a-papercut hands. What I’d do for yours. You have no idea.