The Hand Disembodied

The Disembodied Hand The hand that creeps across the sterile hours, in a ward for the insane, that wanders over the bare breasts of mad women, that hungers to touch, something, anything! There were those among us who are not the preferred kind, Locked doors locked them forever out of the collective consciousness of those who toil in broad daylight for a loaf of illogic, so that the fat mouths of children can go on sucking… Yet, they are there, they stand in a row, and stare and stare… Their parents had no clue when siring them. They seem like the hands that pause on the defunct clock, signifying nothing but ill repair. But there are hands that can wind the old-fashioned clock and then deconstruct it in scarcely more time than it takes to blink an eye. They are old hands, others say, warts and fungi and all, but make no mistake, they cannot disconnect from the wrist’s body politics just as the world’s economy cannot dissociate itself from the earth’s land masses. Because there is a plastic prosthetics factory in Hong Kong, in the impoverished sector near the city dump, where at the docks, the Haka* load freight, tax-free to Louisiana, to a third-tier medical school, where in each graduating class of doctors, there is a worst one. Psst, don’t let him operate on your hand. The recent immigrants who have not yet sworn allegiance, not having been here for long, nor do they see the new country as a permanent place in their hearts, they too, have hands… The hand that is penning this, the tired, effete, and worn hand betrays a heart that is becoming callous as the opposition calls for its severance from body politics that the hand has been feeding… All hands shall be on deck then to be judged, and should they be tired of being Judged, then abandoned, locked away, and then the hand, the disembodied hand, the hand that belongs to no one, and yet it belongs to everyone… The hand, the hand, the hand… The hand that will finally pick up a weapon, because this disembodied hand belongs to no one and everyone, the hand, the hand, the hand… Give us a hand… __________________________________________________________________ *Haka: “guest people” – indigenous people in Southern China.