These Hands Poem by Frank Avon

I spread my two hands;
I press my two forefingers
and my two thumbs together,
making a heart between them,
as it should be.

Why in the mythology
of our physiques
is the plateau of our feelings
identified with that dumb pump
in our torso, and not,

as might be more apt
metaphorically, and more
visibly persuasive
and more clearly sensitive,
in our hands?

* * * * *

There they are:
now they are gnarled.
What I see so spread apart
are mostly veins and wrinkles
and swollen, knobby knuckles.

There is that ring finger:
the tip is missing, has been
since my pony bit it off
before I was three,
and gave me my first notoriety.

An old story for old hands.
I turn them over, pressing
only the little fingers together.
The heart has become a tent
or a temple, just as it should.

There are those palms.
pinkish and just a bit puffy,
with life lines angular and
horizontal, only one in each palm,
carved deep and long.

These hands, once strong
and pliable, have always been
smaller than I would have
preferred, not as square
and manly as my father's

or those chosen by photographers
as works of art and emblems
of the sensitive brute (Man) .
but neither long fingers for the piano
nor tough, wily ones to grasp cash.

* * * * *

Even so, these are the hands
that have held hers
for all these years
and touched the softness
of her soft skin, her

luxurious curves.
These are the fingers
her babies have held
or pointed toward
like Michelangelo's Adam.

And that plain gold band
at the base of that finger
is never removed, is a second
skin, as the press of her flesh
against mine has always been.

* * * * *

These hands have dug in the soil,
planting bulbs of tulips and
elephant ears, have pruned limbs
from Japanese maples and her wisteria,
have clipped roses for her vases.

These hands have slid over keyboards,
have steered automobiles, have
pulled little red wagons and
pushed wheelbarrows, and thrown
stones to ripple the waters.

These hands that hammered and sawed
have washed and rinsed dishes,
have dug post holes and strung
fences, have raked autumn leaves,
have soaped my sweaty body.

As clumsy as I may be, as awkward
and uncoordinated, these hands -
these unimpressive hands - have been
even themselves capable of agility,
the epitome of versatility.

* * * * *

So I spread these hands wide again,
making the heart between them,
and remind myself (as if I could forget)
that these hands, these very hands
give and receive Love and the Lovely.

These hands raised are my body's peaks,
they should be seen as the seat
of the shire that is myself,
they are the plateau of my feelings,
the arch way through which pass

all the roads our souls has traveled,
all the knolls we have caressed,
all the borders we have trespassed,
all the depths we have descended,
all the heights we have transcended.

These hands, these two hands....