Poetry
My Mother’s Kind Loving Touching Hands
And the red-nail thumbprint
The sky is a plate of cracked glass, the
moon a pool of wax waiting to cure, along
with other messages, don’t feel
sorry for yourself pressed in my clay brain with
a thumb and red nail, so that I never
feel sorry for myself ever again, because it is off-
limits, not even in the catch-all net of fishing-Sea-
of-Galilee skies does she allow
the little boy to touch fingers, so he keeps fists clenched
tight in pockets in pants on mornings before the sun
rises, saves his arguments for push-paper walls, remonstrations
for apple-box carpet and knocking of hands of
gods on various thin doors, flat on the open
plain, set aside for safe-
keeping, when you really need them you will
use them, put your tiny little barely
formed brain to use, every-
one loves you, I really hope you feel
their love and don’t let it slip through jinxing
fingers, if you never feel it it’s
probably your fault, then she folds the thumb and
points the red nail that
pressed a print in my clay brain, saying don’t
be sorry.
Hey, I’m Roman. I’m working on my debut novel, 20xx, a work in magical realism. I write on Substack.
