Writing 201: Poetry, Fingers

Keys on a piano, a clarinet, a typewriter, a computer keyboard all played by my fingers.
Fingers that sewed a sampler when baby brother was born
Fingers that learned too early how to sew baby blankets
Fingers that entwined curls on a curly-headed daughter, now comb her curly-headed daughter.

Struggling with words, shy, bashful, unsure,
Can fingers replace words? creating, caressing, constructing, and trying to push the right buttons
Instead, arguing, angry, quarrelsome speech
Fingers cannot mend what words tear down.

Fingers on hands that look like my grandmother’s: large, knobby, hardened
Did she ever wonder about her words, her fingers?
Fingers help influence the timid tongue through imaginative work.

Sifting warm sand filters through fingers unable to make time stand still,
You cannot hold it back
When you clench your fist you close your options.