Right Hand
Vicki Feaver
Ever since, in an act of reckless
middle age, I broke my wrist
learning to skate, my right hand
refuses to sleep with me.
It performs the day’s tasks
stiffly, stoically; but at night
slides out from the duvet
to hollow a nest in the pillow
like an animal gone to ground
in a hole in the hedge
whose instinct says have nothing
to do with heart, lungs, legs,
the dangerous head. I dreamed of gliding
through a Breughel winter:
of sitting in smoky inns
drinking burning geneva.
My hand dreams its own dream
of escaping: a waving weed rooted
in a pool so icy and numbing
I can feel its ache
rising up my arm.
Vol. 13 No. 22 · 21 November 1991 » Vicki Feaver » Right Hand
page 10 | 144 words