205.348.7264 mfj@sa.ua.edu

Between Heart and Hand

Kathleen Kelley

So tell me, dear God

(where god, what god. How, God?)

 

Tell me, show me, point me:

Where is the disconnect between my heart and my hand? 

 

What black hole in my brain, what crushing gravity keeps my spirit

 trapped in this orbit in my torso?

(I am only absorbing, not reflecting–

That deadly aura has snared all light in void,

And it is dark, dark, dark now.) 

 

What beast has built its her home in my shoulders, 

creaking and lurching and nesting?

(she gave herself away, 

The blood never reaches my hands quickly enough, cut off and devoured, 

She has made me cold, cold, cold now.

 

But I’ll return to quill and ink,

And ask my beast if she could spare

 a little pray prey, 

So I might paint 

myself 

visible 

Again.