Bottle and Glass Of Wine

Drunk Hands (live reading)


I look at my hands,
the hands of my
mother, it happened
one day suddenly,

the soft shapeless hands,
morphed into hers, but
somehow still on my arms,

I look at my hands,
my fathers
thick short nails, sandpaper
for skin, thick worn fingers,
widened by labour and time,
numbed by design.

I look at my hands,
I see the things
these hands have done,
the gestures, signals
to communicate, the things
they’ve built, crafted, broken,
the surfaces they have touched,
skin, grass, sand, water, air,

I see the position they hold
over me, In constant view,
of constant necessity,

I’ve felt them before,
as if not mine, I felt them
fail and decline,
i feel them like
they are larger
than the sun, larger
than everyone,

I've seen them shake,
I've hid within them,
I’ve crossed them behind
my childhood back, I’ve
watched them attack,
as if not part of me,
their idol wandering,
disappointingly, part
of my intimacy,
stuck out on a limb,
Translating for me.