poem... first draft. already in revise space but here goes...

[bonairpoet]

still life with chopsticks

My hands are beloved. Are cups.
The knuckles want to become sparrows.
They line themselves as with kohl
and make a masquerade sometimes
of what they believe - applause, caress.
My hands court the duende. My hands manufacture
grip and architect throw. They recognize
an old swagger, a knowing toward speed.
They dream of pummel and drumskin. An older
blackness gnarled from fist and wood. They crave
the fat pen’s certainty. The flourish
of brush, the brandish of steel. The wrists
want mudras and English - slide
whispers into the palms; they gossip
at the callouses like dogs. Raise swellings
across the dunes of lines, raise scars
into a snarl, like a king’s or a stevedore’s.

- the palms want backs and at least
one ecstatic waist. But the wrists
are always twisting things. They are
the fists’ quiet motherfuckers - my
hands are a civil war. They’re always
trying to surrender. They always answer
to Betray.