Poem by Carl Boon 

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POST-ACCIDENT

It was only later she realized
how bruised her lover’s hands,

how the chipped nails
and knuckles blue from trauma

would never clutch nor love
as tenderly as hers. Her dilemma

was how to soothe them,
how to do it so he wouldn’t feel

less than a man. Like an origamist
working in soft light,

she began on the edges:
first the thumb that made her

squeal when she was a girl
in her father’s Chevrolet, 

then the left index finger
that parted her lips so gently

the morning her mother died.
This would be tedious work,

this easing of pain, this otherwise
simple stretching of palms

to kiss again. She was frightened
finally to be in charge, to feel

the skin coming back to life,
the tendons coiled and hard.

But she would be his again,
and he hers, as late February

merged again into spring,
how it did when they were young.

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