print previewback MATTHEW HOTHAM
Without Like or As
Some things are more incommunicable than others
like how the left hand is a symbol for the soul.
It is Wednesday . . . no . . . Tuesday I think.
It is Tuesday, a day named for a one-handed god,
and this is my first thought: my left hand is numb.
I must have fallen asleep on it, and now
through osmosis, or the transitive property
of certain states of consciousness, it too
has gained the attribute of sleep. This has the shape
of a metaphor: my left hand deadened
under the weight of my inert body.
But no, not deadened. Just asleep.
And with what cacophony of suffering
does it flutter back to light. 
