Twins -by Barrett Warner

The hand without feeling 

resembles the hand that feels. 

Both have sixty or so small bones 

and five stocky fingers. 

These hands have been friends 

since either can remember. 

Now, the good hand feels for both. 

The bad hand waves, 

as if to agree with every word. 

One side holds forth, the other hopes 

that doors will open without knobs. 

This is how I go through life. 

Falling on a muddy trail last week, 

the bad hand broke the crash, cracking bones. 

In spite of its strange new shape— 

a valley cutting across my palm 

and two fingers refusing to buddy-up— 

it was entirely painless; the good hand 

never stopped singing, nor once offered 

to staunch the widening geranium of blood.
 
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Barrett Warner is the author of Why Is It So Hard to Kill You? (Jane's Boy, 2015) and My Friend Ken Harvey (Publishing Genius, 2014). Among poets, he tends to refer to himself as an essayist and mentions Entropy Magazine and Chattahoochee Review. Among essayists, he tends to refer to himself as a short story writer, and mentions Salamander and Quarter after Eight. For his extreme nervous discomfort in his own true skin, and other reasons, family members would rather not sit next to him on airplanes. He blogs at barrettwarner.com