Left Hand

It reaches out to shake

but retreats, shyly,

good for little more

than keeping writing paper still

when someone throws open a window

or balancing a ladder

or pivoting a gravedigger’s shovel,

acts of supporting inertia,

fending off wind and gravity.

 

Since birth, a series of retreats,

little hopes ground to pulp,

until like a marionette only half-stringed

you finally meet a beautiful woman

who extends her left hand

and you smirk disdainfully

and offer your right.                                                                     printable

For Federico García Lorca

 

I found death happily

spinning old cloth

in my father’s basement.

 

I sat beside him

to embroider the plain vestments

but each stitch

blackened to ash

between my fingers.

 

His fat, nimble hands

just kept churning

fabric yards over the cold tiles,

though I asked him

to slow.

 

I was alone in the house.

I had a key.

My father had left

the procession.

Silence.

 

When the sun finally broke in,

it strengthened my thread

and in the light the garment

was black too, ashen,

my thread yellow.  

Death just kept sewing

and in the silence

I began working hard

to catch up.                                                                                        printable