Once even I couldn’t tell

my left arm from my right.

Time confused everyone

before I bit the fingernails

of one hand down to the wrist.

Now, afraid of my hunger,

it wants to bend at the elbow

and hide behind my back.

It moves slowly. It’s all I can do

to keep it straight.

 

Bill Ayres is working in his seventh bookstore. His poems have appeared recently in Plainsongs, The Windhover, Bird’s Thumb, and the Anglican Theological Review.

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Published in the February 22, 2019 issue: View Contents
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