Five Thoughts

Five long, sticky and clinging

thin, thinner, thinnest: numbering.

One small and short, a stubble

amongst the firs on her palm,

the rest four ticking like ugly babies

shoved in a cradle in a casket.

The lines bleed out a night’s hard work

we cry crimson and one sticks out

longer than the rest. The phalanx,

its heart, knobby and raging

flailing and falling, trickling down her body.

Blood in a pewter pot,

phalanges more omniscient than

any irrevocable eye,

together they rake her body.

The tips, calloused and crowded,

rings – choking and bolstering

no two bruises alike.

Prodding, resting on her chin

on her thigh, skimpy, not there

twinging like morsels

stuck beneath crooked fingernails.

Five iridescent, sprouting from the

knuckles of shoveled, shriveled howls.

Curved into crescent shapes

unnecessary, veiling what carves her mind.

Depth-in, hands deep, shaking

beneath scraped carpels –

a new face found under old fingers.

A new page used to turn

the same bloodied story now written from

a different hand.

Photo Credit: Alyssa L. Miller Flickr via Compfight cc

 

Written by 

Paakhi Bhatnagar is a student from India and an avid reader of historical fiction. She is a passionate feminist and blogs about current politics and feminist issues. She also possess the uncanny ability of turning everything into a debate.

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