Fingers

At twelve

I boycotted cutlery;

a showy rebellion against a man

who sat opposite

and didn’t forgo

spoon and fork even when he was

face to face with a chicken bone.

He smiled (as he would

in tricky situations),

and raised it aloft

with prosthetic fervour.

It was then that my fingers

discovered life. They plunged into

its heat. The plate was full.

They entered the world below.

Never had they known anything

like the contact, been so close.

They eddied and circled round,

and were half drowned, half consumed,

by the element they visited.

There’s no analogy

for the ensuing transformation.

Longhand writing,

for instance,

is no comparison;

longhand carried words painfully,

and didn’t arrive

late, as my fingers did,

perfumed with soap, staining themselves,

stumbling, dancing in circles.