Hands

A writer who stops writing can only see stories
Tips of them, tails of them
crouching in dripping alleys
She has given up the pen
to live among mortals
but stares baldly at the world, still
like a fallen god

A writer who stops writing
is not a writer at all
but a stone
no longer a tool to build watchtowers
or light fires
but a pale, pink thing
floated down a fast-moving stream
its pocketmarks and humps
smoothed over by insistent, wily tides
such a pretty, useless substance
such a weary, wishing prize

Inside, the stone yearns
for a warning jolt,
scream of demise,
sudden bump over an edge
the entire way down spent falling and praying
then,
a solid impact
a crack.
maybe two.
maybe a dozen
yield uneven leg-stumps to hobble on, perhaps
but preferably—hopefully—hands
​
hands that grasp
​hands that try