My Good Hand Plays God
YUSEF KOMUNYAKAA 1941
My thumb & index finger
frame a zero, then an 8
sleeping on its side, & I say,
Leonardo, show me how
the miraculous scapula
moves like a torn wing
half-fused, barely unstuck,
& a life dares to lift off.
Floating rib, boomerang flat—
if it comes back or not,
I don’t have the stomach
for doubt & vivisection,
reshaping flesh, muscle,
& tone into a portrait,
or mock-up of a machine
glimpsed on the edge
of destiny, a daydreaming
five hundred years early.
What if, born out of wedlock,
a silky caul over his face,
Leonardo brushed light under
skin of oils, science & art.
I could stand like man-X
moving toward night-
time, feet parted, ready to do
some one-handed magic,
singing Judas’s old plea.
My left hand holds up
a sketch, showing a way—
good hand & bad hand,
circle half-broken, let there be
a truce, embrace the fall.
The whole contraption of
gore & math, just here,
as I go over the blueprint,
hand raising the brain
to higher order, working
in the dark, step for step,
hovel to temple, & I draw
a cross down my chest.
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Written on 2020
Submitted by Drone232 on August 13, 2022
Modified on April 21, 2023
- 1:08 min read
- 36 Views
Quick analysis:
Scheme | AB CX XD EX XX EB XX XX DF XX AX XX XX FX CX FX XX XX DX XX |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic trimeter |
Characters | 1,156 |
Words | 229 |
Stanzas | 20 |
Stanza Lengths | 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2 |
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"My Good Hand Plays God" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/134234/my-good-hand-plays-god>.
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