Monday, October 10, 2011

Brick Apartment Building, 1935


His Hands
rough and red
tiny individual dark hairs
on thick knuckles gnawed nails

Hands that reached for her in the darkness.
They were both loving and cruel.
They stroked her hair and blackened her eyes.
When he died
in his sleep that August night
she took the cleaver
from the kitchen
and lopped those hands off.

She buried them in a shoe box
in the small fenced
in patch of grass
that was the backyard
under a red moon.

When Spring came
tulips bloomed
along with five roses
with thick thorny stems.


Recorded spoken-word version of the poem, with music by Luke Willis:

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