I arrived late <br />to the mind’s eye <br />poetry group meeting <br />and I interrupted a critique of a prose poem <br />about a father tragically <br />losing his finger <br />in an lumber yard accident <br /> <br />and before I could shake <br />the impression of a crushed finger <br />bleeding and screaming <br />out of my mind <br /> <br />another writer mentioned <br />that her father had accidently <br />cut off his finger one day <br />and saved it in a clear mason jar <br />alongside other body parts he had lost <br />and I did not have the nerve <br />to ask which ones. <br /> <br />Another poet said <br />his uncle lost a finger too! <br />losing sounds so nice <br />until you walk in another room <br />and accidentally find it <br />again <br /> <br />I thought about the time <br />my oldest son Diego <br />almost snipped the tip of his index finger off <br />with the neighbor’s hedge trimmer <br /> <br />his mom Clara put his hand <br />inside the coffee beans <br />of a Folgers can <br />to stop the bleeding <br />because that is what her grandfather did <br />on his coffee plantation <br />when a worker cut themselves with a machete <br /> <br />after rushing to the hospital <br />to get seven stitches <br />at the end of the day <br />the mangled tip was still hanging on <br />to the end of his finger <br /> <br />I didn’t realize <br />that poetry <br />could be so hard <br />on your hands<br /><br />Oscar Mireles<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/poetry-can-be-hard-on-your-hands/
