at http://dversepoets.com/this-is-us/tonight we are looking at hands – and writing something about them. This is a poem about my mother shortly before she passed away a few years ago. I also use the technique where the title is also the first line of the poem.
Unlike the rest of you.
They constantly twitch and ripple.
Your fingers are not frantic, but urgent,
grasping and letting go of the bed sheet.
As if it’s a shoreline lapping at your chest.
As if it’s the edge of an ocean.
As if beyond it is a normal life you
are desperate to reach.
This place is cathedral quiet,
broken occasionally by machines
breathing with ticks and bleeps. But
it does not bring you calm.
That bird-like alertness through which
you measured life is completely dulled.
Your eyes are bemused.
Your body is still.
Just those hands working away
as if they alone can free you
from a place that is neither
prison nor sanctuary.
welshstream 