“They were kept in a wooden trunk
In one corner of the attic
A trunk my grandfather had painted
With red and black enamels
In the manner of the Chinese cabinets
He loved and could not afford
And inside the trunk the small box
Lined with a violet velvet
Where he kept his gloves
a box
That I believe should have held
A strand of pearls or a set
Of bone-handled
Carving knives from Geneva
A box fluted with ivory
And engraved with my grandfather’s
Initials each letter
Still faintly visible in its flourish
Of script across the tiny brass shield
Holding the latch
one night
My mother dragged it out to remind
Herself of a particular
Summer at the lake when her father
Dressed to the teeth for once
In his life arrived at
The lakeshore for a cocktail party
At a neighbor’s boat and stepped
Right off into the water
Trying to stretch the short distance
From the dock to the boat’s deck
And though the water was extremely shallow
All anyone could see for a moment
Were his hands held barely
Up in the twilight up
Above the surface of the water
Not pleading for help not reaching for
A rope but simply keeping his gloves
Dry his gloves of lemon silk
Which he refused to let touch water
Or liquid of any kind but
He rose slowly in the foam
Walking up the muddy rocks kicking
And swearing
Making his way over to the lake’s edge
His hands still held up as if
At gunpoint
To the applause of the whole
Party my mother said as she worked
The frozen clasp loose of its pin
And slid her fingernail along
The edge of the box
Where the mold held it
Until the thin lid peeled back
And inside
the yellow silk
Lit against the violet lining
Each finger of each glove bent
Slightly in an undisturbed
Calm
The two thumbs folded
Precisely across the palms
As if to guard the long seams
Crossing each like a lifeline
And my mother held the two gloves
Up to the light to let us see
Their transparence
a glow
Like the wings of a flying fish
As it clears the sea’s surface
Then she laid them in my own
Cupped hands
Each as faintly moist as a breath
And as she smoothed them again
Along the velvet of their box
I imagined how I might someday pull
Them on in elegant company
Though even then the gloves were as small
As my hands
And so the next summer with my family
Camping near that familiar lake
I decided one night to find the old dock
Long since replaced by a new marina
I took the kerosene lamp
And walked to the main road
Then along its low curving shoulders
Until I came to the pitted asphalt lane
That once led to the dock
I picked my way slowly through the rubble
Through the brush and overgrown branches
The small globe of light thrown
By the lamp falling
Ahead of me along the path
Until I could see the brief glitter
And glare of the lake
Where the stars had escaped their clouds
And stood reflected
and where the road
Once swung gently toward the pier
The rocks now fell off twenty feet
In a sudden shelf and at its bottom
The dark planking of the dock began
I held the lamp in both hands
Pressing my back against
The slick dirt-and-stone face of the shelf
I slid carefully down working the heels
Of my boots into the crags and juts
To slow myself in the clatter
Of twigs and gravel old
Paving rotted boards and bark
Until I stopped and caught my breath
Looking out over the old dock
The soft planks at my feet stretching
Past the water’s edge
Held up still by a few fat pilings
And as I took the first
Of a few steps
the moldered boards
Sagged and snapped beneath me splinters
Shooting up as I tried to leap clear
As one ankle twisted in the broken planks
And I fell face down onto the mossy
Dock the lamp
I’d been holding the whole time
Smashing in my hands the kerosene
Washing over the boards and my fingers
Up past both wrists and blazing
In a sudden and brilliant gasp of flame
I held up my burning hands
Yanking my leg up through the shattered boards
Rolling then falling onto the rocks below
My hands still aflame each a flat
Candle boned with five wicks
And then I remember only
The hospital in the village
Then the hospital in the city where
I lay for weeks
My hands bandaged and rebandaged
Like heavy wooden spoons
And beneath the crisp daily
Gauze the skin of each hand was seared
And blistered each finger raw
The pores dilating as the burnt skin
Was first bared to the air then to
The ointments
And each day more morphine
As the fever rose up my arms into
My mind my dreams until the morphine
Dimmed the nights and days
Until at last even I could stand to look
At the gnarled and shrunken hands
As if some child had made
The skeletons of wire
Then wrapped each poorly in doughy strings
Of papier-mâché
in the next year
My hands were stitched in a patchwork
Of dime-sized pieces of skin cut
And lifted from the small
Of my back or my legs
Until they began to resemble
Hands you might hold in your own
But since then and in the hottest
Weather it doesn’t matter I’ve
Always worn these gloves
Not from any
Vanity but to spare myself and you
The casual looking away
These gloves of kid leather tanned
Soft as skin and dyed at my request
A pale yellow
the yellow of a winter lemon
In honor of my grandfather in honor
Of the fire as it dies
And if some men choose to walk
Miles in the country just
To look across the patches and divides
Of the landscape
Into the hills lakes and valleys
Or the dense levels of tree and cloud
So that they might better meditate upon
Their world their bitterness fatigue
Themselves well
I have only to take off one glove
Or another to stare down into the landscape
Of each scorched stitched hand
At the melted webs of flesh at the base
Of each finger
the depressions
Or small mounts and lumps of scar
The barely covered bone
or the palms
Burnt clean of any future any
Mystery so I’ll pull back on
My gloves these
That I order each year from London
And if in the course of a dinner somewhere
I hear comments about the arrogance
Of a man who’d wear his gloves
Through an entire meal what a dandy
What an out-of-date mannered sort of parody
Of a gentleman
I will not mind
If the mild shock and disapproval rise
When I wear my yellow gloves
I’ll never pull one off to startle
Or shame everyone into silence
instead
I’ll simply check to see that each glove
Is properly secure
that each pearl button
Is snugly choked in its taut loop
Its minute noose of leather”