by Stazja McFayden

My hands have touched places
Where angels and fools alike
Have feared to tread.

My fists have pummeled heads
Of people I was supposed to love
By reason of birth.

My palms have begged for dimes
At a time when I could not make sense
Of my own self worth.

My left hand has poured the salt
On self-inflicted wounds
While my right hand did not know
What it was doing.

My hands have done the needle dance
With bad boys, cold steel pricking my flesh,
Coming in rushes of little death.

Seduced my executioner
With auto-erotic handwriting
He couldn't read on the wall

My hands have been scalded
Reaching into boiling cauldrons
Rescuing children from cannibals.

My fingers have frozen at 45 degrees
Touching a corpse who, the day before,
Was a 98.4 frightened runaway
Spreading her legs for a butcher abortionist.

To buy my next meal
I've stood at a grindwheel
Beveling turquoise for silver bracelets
Until the nail on my index finger
Was ground to the bloody quick.

Divorced myself
To wear the wedding rings of strangers.

Gave birth to a motherless child
And washed my hands of fairy tales.

In homeless shelter kitchen sinks
Washed my hands after swabbing sweat
From fevered foreheads.

I have planted seeds and watered weeds
In unfertile gardens believing
Something beautiful would grow at my hands
When everyone warned it was hopeless.
Fingers splintered and torn by thankless thorns

Even so, I have raised red roses
From beds of stone.