Soul Out of a Magician's Hat
       

My gratitude for your sketch of the hand
that brushes the hair;

for the fingers that crack open
the brown egg. And for the one hand

holding a hat's rim, while the other
hovers over, because the other hand

will pull out a slow satin
scarf or nervous rabbit.

Here's to the habit of the hand
that refolds the newspaper neatly.

Here's gratitude for sketching the little
hand cupping nickels.

And for the thing outside that makes
the branch put out more
leaves, which is the very thing
that wakes the hand
to sweep the porch stairs.

Thank you for the lisp of a clean sheet
taken from the top of the ream.

Thank you for the hand that sharpens
the pencil, it writes an I & a thou.
When thou is erased, I is lean as a pen.

I leans thinner than the red hand
of the clock swifting round
the mechanical seconds.

I, an eyelash on the page.

Thanks once more for sketching the young
fist that rips apart the gladiola.

So perishably lovely
the I unpetaled.

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Copyright © 2017 Carolina Ebeid All rights reserved
from You Ask Me To Talk About the Interior
Noemi Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission