The touch of death and madness

    hands old with work and worry 

    they have opened closed places

            the chest and cranium

        each morning I glove them for a dangerous art

            I remember them younger

                throwing javelins

            skinning animals

        carrying freesias

    they are warped by years 

        of holding strange instruments 

            trained never to touch the wrong thing

        hands old with the touch of hope and desire

    they would hold you gently as crystal lace:

            move your hair

              the atoms never touching

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Sebastian Koga