Hands

 

I.

My mothers, veined sateen pillows

For loafing diamonds— acrylic

Talons and knobby knuckles

My sisters, jaundice yellow—blistered

From esophagus friction

Mine, parched swollen knots, stubby

Antennas with ornery bulges— Husked nails

Pink at the crux, fleshy and tender

Metacarpals protruding like fine bones in bat wings

Digits drip chunky turquoise

And contorted sterling leaves— Fashioned

In leather paws, showcased

On Grandma’s sausage links

II.

It is eerie, the maiden voyage of foreign hands

Upon your body—the curves

Wrinkles and rolls, bellybuttons polish

Whirring pelvis—His chapped lips graze

Timid tips, led to oblong flesh—pulsing

Folded skin and taut acorn head—

Each neuron, millions upon millions,

Salute absolute stimuli

III.

In mint scrubs he was tossed to me

Amidst periwinkle wrapping paper—

With flush countenance and purple tentacles

Burrito wrapped like boas comfort their young

Puffy eggplant fingers reflex

Squeezing at my nudge—

As if the genome programs rapport

For mushy handholding

IV.

After encompassing silence

I find myself in your nook, lichen to your stump

Breath like cotton-candy—

Knit hands in ribcage, kindled by squirmy innards

You dig into my umber flesh

Thumbs kneading curves like cookiedough

Rubbing tousled tresses as a child’s greedy hands

Gouge sand for clams—I trace calligraphy

On your trunk with bloody cuticles and chipped polish

Ink drizzles down my fingers and soils forsaken sheets

V.

Consider your fingerprints

Pinky, ring, middle, index and thumb

All with an existential dilemma—gnarled

Fissures in epidermal cyclones

Probing dense forests

Of synaptic metaphysics