Hand
       

Cell and bone
more servile than the elbow
and more birdlike

than the nose.
Thin fingers fan out
like spokes on a half-moon

wheel, or the toes of a balled
Chippendale claw.
A hand can be a monastery,

fingers bent in repose,
or a slaughterhouse
where nothing is safe.

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Copyright © 2018 Margo Taft Stever All rights reserved
from Cracked Piano
CavanKerry Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission