Why does the right hand get all the good jobs, <br />like greeting visiting dignitaries <br />(such a pleasure) , <br />or blowing farewell kisses to the one you love <br />(such sweet sorrow) , <br />or playing the melody while the left <br />has to oompah along in the bass? <br />Right-handers get the best adjectives too. <br />I mean, we’d all like to be <br />adroit (as the French have it) . <br />So why do we poor southpaws have to be <br />gauche or, while we’re about it, gawky? <br />Tactless, without grace, ungainly, awkward, <br />physically and socially inept, that’s us. <br />And Latin’s no better. <br />We’d like to be dextrous too. <br />What makes us <br />sinister? Was Dracula <br />left-handed, or something? <br /> <br />Even when we can hammer <br />or saw or paint or drive a screw <br />with either hand equally, <br />or cut the nails on both sets of fingers, <br />they only say we are ambi- <br />dextrous, which is a bit of a left-handed <br />compliment, treating the left <br />as if it were an honorary right, <br />as if it had no right <br />to be skilful <br />in its own right. <br /> <br />I suppose my left hand ought to be grateful <br />(in this respect) that I was not born <br />into a tradition where it is laid down <br />what each hand can do. It could have been <br />condemned to a lifetime <br />of bottom-wiping and not much else, <br />and becoming cack- <br />handed in more ways than one.<br /><br />Paul Hansford<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-poem-about-laterality/
