When They Ask Me About My Hands
I will say I typed with them, same as my father wrote
with his, same as my grandfather flew
in this way, my hands travel through time
fingers that can pull a trigger or
point into the horizon—these hands
that men in my family have used to feed
and kill, and love, and wash.
I feel their ghosts bending my knuckles
the mythologies of my grandfather
blending with the stories of my youth:
Grandpa was so fast he could walk between the raindrops;
King Midas was so greedy everything he touched turned to gold.
I feel both sets of hands hidden in my palms
holding their own stories with an iron grip:
Grandpa was so greedy he turned his daughter to gold;
King Midas was so fast he left my father
in New York for a new family halfway across the world.
With myths and legends, who am I to distinguish my family from others—
The Kingdom of Ulster held a boat race to determine
the rightful heir. The winner: the first to lay their hand on the shore.
Upon near defeat, one man severed
his own hand, threw it to the shore. He lived
the rest of his days a king. The bards argue over his name
Some say it was Niall of the Nine Hostages. Others say a lost
member of the Uí Néill clan. I confuse it
with King Midas, whose hands knew only blood and gold.
Perhaps his name was Grandpa Samuels who severed part of himself
so that he could be a king elsewhere. But who am I to judge?
This year I left my family in New York, for another
in California. I traded one job and one apartment
for another job and another apartment.
I look at my hands and wonder if they know the difference,
if trading one routine for another has ever been the answer,
or if the burning truth has always been hiding in my fingertips:
that nothing has ever changed without a severance,
without depriving the body of something it has known
its whole life, without a self-inflicted plague, a departure
and I ask myself,
what if I took the blade into my palm
and chose a new destiny?