October
2006
Covet
My father’s wallet was an item
of deep mystique, even more sacred
than my mother’s purse –
that object of her’s
I could comprehend coveting,
for the heavy pounds and large
ten pences within.
The brown worn ragged
leather, these signs of his hands :
dark umber stains from years
of hasty breakfasts and workman’s grease;
hands which were nimble and thick,
with their dark valleys of lines
and their still growing grain
of machine and skin oils, flicks
of paint and shedding glue,
sawdust under the fingernails
which where pared down to the quick.
Those hands held me,
and I held them, sometimes, a world ago,
now I watch their dashes,
with their wedded-to-hard-work
rings of damage,
whenever I can.
But I could never think of opening
that tomb of ruffled fivers,
with its strips of dirtied paper
peeking out,
and frayed stitching
and rounded corners
and friendly overflowing.
I did not want to have it for
my own, but to have lived and known
so long and old-seeming as he.
And would give anything
to have his warm scarred and
soft calloused hands one day,
rather than my own pair of smooth,
fingers, thumbs and palms.