Hands

In the chapel, 
In the straightbacked 
Ache of the pew, 
We held them—lap toys 
Tendered at arm’s length 
To keep us quiet, 
To weigh in our hands 
Like stones and turn 
Over, to conjure up 
Hornblende and pyrite, 
The inscrutable surface, 
Dark bloodvein, fissure . . . 
And again in sickness 
We held them, in the fever 
Of bedsheets, the drugged 
Nightmare. These 
Were the only times. 

Whispered out of sleep 
Early, we stood there. 
Between the poised finger and thumb
We could imagine 
The mechanical pencil, 
In our heads the world’s last wonder,
And over the slack wrist, 
The watch with the seven hands . . .

Lost treasurer of flasks and lozenge tins, 
We find you in the jarred pencil drawer, 
In hung shirts, breastpockets filled with nails, 
In axe-helve and trowel, the curled glove, 
In bedsheets each night, the hand 
We give back to wristbone, stilled blood . . .