November 2017
Jeff Burt
jeff-burt@sbcglobal.net
jeff-burt@sbcglobal.net
I have gone through periods of my life, grade school, dating, meetings, where having hands has been awkward, never knowing what to do with them. Even lying down I never know where to put them, up on the my chest as if in a casket, by my sides like I'm on a gurney, or crisscrossed on my stomach in a peaceful repose.
Life Line
I look at the yo-yo’s tangled string of my palms,
lifeline a clear disjunction, with a jump
that ends one line and begins the next.
I wonder if it’s already happened,
death, and I didn’t know it,
perhaps in the decades of work,
perhaps in abusing the same stories over again,
the way we irritate our children by retelling
a time that illustrates their emotional fragility.
I wonder what the fence lines mean,
the barbed wire impressions of the hand
that go deeper than the life line,
wonder if these are the lasting impressions
I have made, the destiny of my children
imprisoned, the sins that pass to generations,
the bias, the anger, the ridicule.
Trying to shed the lines, I swing my hands
below my waist, walking the dog.
Public Speaking
It felt like a button
had punched a hole
in my throat, a raveling
of my jacket winched
tightly up my neck,
the audience turned hyenas
staring on the edge
of a dry field, and me
the waterholed
exhausted prey.
With hands throbbing
I slowly realized
I had not yet
begun to speak.
I look at the yo-yo’s tangled string of my palms,
lifeline a clear disjunction, with a jump
that ends one line and begins the next.
I wonder if it’s already happened,
death, and I didn’t know it,
perhaps in the decades of work,
perhaps in abusing the same stories over again,
the way we irritate our children by retelling
a time that illustrates their emotional fragility.
I wonder what the fence lines mean,
the barbed wire impressions of the hand
that go deeper than the life line,
wonder if these are the lasting impressions
I have made, the destiny of my children
imprisoned, the sins that pass to generations,
the bias, the anger, the ridicule.
Trying to shed the lines, I swing my hands
below my waist, walking the dog.
Public Speaking
It felt like a button
had punched a hole
in my throat, a raveling
of my jacket winched
tightly up my neck,
the audience turned hyenas
staring on the edge
of a dry field, and me
the waterholed
exhausted prey.
With hands throbbing
I slowly realized
I had not yet
begun to speak.
© 2017 Jeff Burt