The other day I was looking at skin.
What a mass of lakes and rivers!
Was I a philosopher of the sin
or a carpenter with slivers?
I saw the relationship of the whole
to my middle finger.
If I may be so seriously bold
my mind became a springer.
It sprang up at mount and valley.
Crossed space and back again.
The other fingers started to tally.
Math grunted in the palm of a pen.
How could I handle the outside?
My fingers were blind to each other.
I fumbled objects from inside.
Why couldn’t they get together?
The index finger minded its own.
It pointed out importance.
Every river joined in the prone
but what separated now from hence?
I tried to clasp for some unknown reason
a passion to make sense of the whole.
I held my jaw in a gesture of treason.
My skeleton had no sole!
It slapped the face. Thumb reached the eye.
Next the index picked an absent nose.
It flicked into the enormous sky.
Then started counting the toes.
Imagine that. They matched the feet!
What a wide-eyed coincidence!
They tickled me and I sat on my seat
Three in one eying my circumstance.
The arch, too, came into play.
It found my neck and tickled.
The three became one in the way.
Now I see my skin wrinkled!
I can count and so can you.
Have we forgotten tomorrow?
Rise again and walk with two.
You and I no longer know sorrow.