Which One

Genre: Poetry

My fists -

I lost it somehow,
that paragraph of me.
so carefully (kept it in my closed fists, collapsed and clenched)
lost now, so I keep my hands as fists,
as not to lose again. I sleep
‘til five on the first real day of Spring.

On dirty sheets, my elbows my knees.
My heart, ka-thunk-ka-thunking,
and more importantly, my fists are still tight
like a pair of fat and smug pigeons on a windowsill
of one man’s apartment.

And now, my fists (their pecking thumbs)
are asleep.
ignoring the phone buzz.
rolling over,
letting their fingers fall just barely to
knead the pillow like they would
if they wished someone was there. Like
they would
if they were allowed.
to be mere hands – to touch
old clichés – cups of tea, typewriters.

He comes inside and smokes a joint
(the man) whose eyes are the same
colour as mine. The
man, whose hands are hands, not fists
like mine.

My fists, letting him stay to make nest
on the couch, are tired with their clenching.
Muscles and bones – blood and skin.

He, running dry (like wells do), calls me fat.
(my knuckles, my nails) ‘so lazy, so lazy, always self-loathing.’
force me to fly. I dare. tell me to fly. How dare?

I try, but fists are fists – not hands and cannot mimic wings (not
so long as they are fists)
I cry, I squawk. And like animals that grow too tame,
I forget how to provide myself (a pigeon needs and eats).

Now my fists are the hideous ones at the edge of the flock,
with gaps in their feathers – with eyes like beets.