instead, he has these HANDS.
<jazz hands>
hands that know how to practice resurrection. hands that know how
to keep arriving and arriving. hands that honor times of no
particular destination. hands that can run with the wind.
we're all jazz musicians when we make love, they say, and with some
hands you can tell that you're not going to sleep much tonight
these hands can find and shape the high notes, discover the warm places,
burrow in thick, wet corners, and set the wild returning
when these hands laugh, the horn section giggles, the clarinet
finds its groove, the trumpet knows its alive
if you wake to this music, you will hum it for the rest of the
morning, and know that it is possible after all, to know some
of the things you should
neither of us needs to be told that, once a melody is truly found,
its echoes never truly die out
these hands can hear a siren somewhere down by the railroad tracks
and turn it into the long slow glide along a thigh
they can hear crabs burrowing beneath a sea grape
and link it to the circling of a stomach
they can hear the sucking of an anemone opening and closing
and throw flowers in its path
they remind me of grackles scuttling along the water's edge
the remind me of cat's paws stretching into the fullness of
a mother cat's stomach
they remind me of seabirds taking flight
they remind me of a rabbit settling into a nest of red autumn leaves
their essence seeps into my skin during the night,
the way mist permeates a flower bed
the way guitar notes fill the spaces between the drums
the way the keys of a piano dance under a bluesman's fingers
when these hands blow,
nothing passes faster than the present
my friend sez: reality is for people that lack imagination,
but real people make the best fantasieshey, magic happens