The poem “My Hand Trembles” is published in Brief Wilderness by Shoe Music Press.
“What is Brief Wilderness?
Other than being another in a series of great small press publications from Shoe Music Press, when asked to explain the title, I’ve said that it suggests the distance between individuals, which is what most literature is about, whether it be a solitary lyric poet talking about how they see the world and others in it, always seemingly at a distance, or longer works of fiction with a set of characters in varying degrees of proximity. Sometimes this brief wilderness is sensual, sometimes practical, but nonetheless this journal seeks to explore this territory.”
-Gordon Purkis, editor
***
My hand trembles,
I can scarcely write,
I have so much
to say to you.
Unable to imagine anything
except your hands
pouring that Sangiovese wine.
For a second
you fix your eye on me
with that certain
and solemn air
which marks
the women of the old Florentine’s paintings,
and although
your attitude is, doubtlessly, instinctive,
you seem to hold your hands back,
as though some sun force
is drawing them
towards my face.
I strove to bear away
with me in memory
the movement
of your hands
over the glasses and the table,
the hands
to which I probably
will never return.
The unrehearsed hands incident —
the hands — interpreters of feelings —
shake my evening
right now.
I know nothing
of how your hands spend their time
during the day,
neither of their past,
so little, in deed, of their future,
which, of course, stimulates my desire
for knowledge —
every morning,
I pass the florist’s window,
calla lilies and roses
catch my eyes,
I think at once
to send them to be delivered
into your sleeping hands,
with one certain and solemn note:
“My hand trembles,
I can scarcely write,
I have so much
to say to you.”
____
