Hands the Color of Fire

Hands the Color of Fire

Kate Peper

She’s back.

Her palm between my shoulder
blades stops me.

She’s back to tell me I’ve failed.

She saw me drowning
and placed her hand.
Words—That’s enough. Nevermind—
would have been too much water.

The first time I made love, failure
didn’t exist. Everything good
happened in an instant. All summer long
God loved me in the way
the small, red maples shook their leaves.

The phone never rang with someone
saying, I don’t know how to tell you this…
Voices, no matter where they came from,
said, I love you. And I believed them.
Wasn’t it real?

This morning, the June sky heavy with heat.
Sitting behind the steering wheel,
engine idling.

IwishIwishIwish.
Sounds like water being pumped.
Stupid words.

Why do I keep looking at my palms
as if they have something to say?
My hands, the color of fire.
When they clap
will I recognize myself?

Dear Lord, make me
ecstatic again.

---

Kate Peper
Poet & Painter

Kate’s chapbook, Dipped In Black Water, won the New Women's Voices Award from Finishing Line Press. Her poems have been nominated five times for a Pushcart and have appeared or are forthcoming in Cimarron Review, Gargoyle, Green Hills Lantern Review, Rattle, Tar River Review and others. Besides writing, Kate is an award-winning watercolor painter and slightly obsessive gardner.

Photography by Nikola Bikar