The Hands Exchange
The Hands Exchange
In that city at that time they ran a hands exchange.
Between the hours of nine and five
You could drop by and they’d unscrew your hands
From your wrists and screw on a new pair,
Kept in little cubbies like bowling shoes.
Then you could wear, for a few days,
A farmer’s hands, dirt so deep in the wrinkles
No amount of scrubbing could clean them.
These hands hungered to pick up a rake,
Making them good for gardening.
Or you could rent the pale, delicate hands
Of a little girl, which knew all kinds of games —
Patty-cake, cat's cradle — that you’d forgotten.
For a little extra you could rent the hands
Of an infamous murderer,
Though these had to remain handcuffed together
So they couldn’t get up to any trouble.
You had to sign a waiver of course,
In your own hand, that the exchange
Couldn’t be held responsible for anything
Their hands might do while you were borrowing them.
But one morning the exchange was closed.
The owners had skipped town, and those
Who’d come to turn the hands they’d borrowed in
And get their own back were out of luck.
It was in this way that a man who’d never been
Interested in writing became a writer,
While another, with a gentle soul
But a mordant curiosity, had to go around
In handcuffs for the rest of his life.