LETTER FROM MY HANDS TO MY BRAIN
After Rachel McKibbens
Museum of marble, you are calling outinto the starless fields. You are sand dunes,dimpled and cold. All theon the drive home. You sit back and watch, grimacing,as we hold the shards from the jar we droppedin the driveway, feasting on allthe brokenness you’ve tallied so far. And yet,we handle the gritted edgesof glistening windows, stack them on a palm, smileat our latest sculpture. Your weighty footso often rests on the hose, choking outthe smallest stream. What would happenif you let us dig into the soil for the garlicand onion? There is never a perfectday to harvest. There are nevernails short enough. Raking in lines of dirt,this we know. We’ve lived under water,traced the blade of a knife, hoveredover a stove, run through someone else’s hair,floated on a breeze. We don’t knowfear as intimately as keyboards, spoons,and other hands, but we are not foolish strangers.Think of all those times you would pause,recognize our fingers moving to your song.What if you let us hold more things:the muck on a spinning wheel,the dog’s fur wet from the lake,rotting firewood, our own body? Let usfind the smoothest rock on the beachif it takes hours. Let us hold a salamanderas if it is a storm. Give us permission.
