Member-only story
Free Verse Poem
Empty Hands
Pen and Ink
The child is set adrift
in a basket of words,
floating to the horizon.
I keep looking back
as the fragile raft recedes,
and long after he has disappeared.
My hands remember his weight
and I repeat his name
to the tall shadows
at the onset of evening.
It is time to learn
to live again,
but my thoughts
will not relent
from the pull
of what is familiar
and what is done.
Is this where
we sweep the dooryard
and tear down the webs
that have bound the air?
Dig for shells
to resist the emptiness?
Make a truce
with all the things
we forgot to remember?
The hungry are filled
but the rich turned away
with empty hands.
I return to hunger
and pray for receiving hands,
until absence itself is consumed
by a trace of splendor,
something known
and unknown:
A hidden dove’s nest
out the window,
a shift in the humidity,
a trail of words
across the threshold.
