Handless

Handless, by Teal M. Chimblo

There are some silver aching things
On the ends of my arms.
I call them mine, yet mine true
are long severed, long forgotten.

These shiny imposters claw inward,
their falseness hidden by an appreciated elegance,
garish and blinding to me.

My old hands were dull beige,
but pulsing with little rivers of iron,
silty fertile estuaries,
Wells, deep and strong with flesh and bone.

I cut them off myself,
with a saw blade between my teeth.
It took some doing, but
I was so convinced of their ugliness.

But lately, just the other day,
I noticed a torn seam beneath the silver.
On the edge where the old and new
and old meet again.

I was walking in the forest,
and the light came through the pines, just so
and the silver slipped, and
one precious drop of red fell to the snow.

By Teal M. Chimblo

There are some silver aching things
On the ends of my arms.
I call them mine, yet mine true
are long severed, long forgotten.

These shiny imposters claw inward,
their falseness hidden by an appreciated elegance,
garish and blinding to me.

My old hands were dull beige,
but pulsing with little rivers of iron,
silty fertile estuaries,
Wells, deep and strong with flesh and bone.

I cut them off myself,
with a saw blade between my teeth.
It took some doing, but
I was so convinced of their ugliness.

But lately, just the other day,
I noticed a torn seam beneath the silver.
On the edge where the old and new
and old meet again.

I was walking in the forest,
and the light came through the pines, just so
and the silver slipped, and
one precious drop of red fell to the snow.