Well, I have punched my hand 

into a brick, exposed the latent inferiority 

of fingers. I will not be writing him

a letter. And this solves that. 

When they picked me up on the road,

and threw me into their wagon, I was 

on my way to his house, and I think 

I whistled: I had discovered a jewel. 

My mother told me: son, you are an idiot.

Today, the brick and the bandage, 

and the little prison chaplain concur.  

The throbbing gristle of knuckles 

oozing its honey-coloured pus all 

the way through, at least: 

it has a finite location;

a beginning, an end, a rhythmic throb

that an instrument could measure – 

the doctor could clean it. I nurse it 

as a distraction 

from the bottom of the ocean, the slow,

silent turn of the knife, butcher of undertow, 

the matador’s axe in my back. 

What I mean is: what is a hand,

without an intention, without a place to rest

between another man’s shoulders? 

When this one heals, I might just try

and break the other one. 

*****