Century of Hands Lyrics

century of hands that reach
from a burning point in time.

in each crease a flock of birds nests.
on each fingertip, a grove of palms in blossom,
swathed in the scarred scarves of holy words and
cradled in the wet arms of your tongue,
contracting and turning, demures.

where the sun should hang, above the
manifold of salt and sulfur respires a
symmetry of hands collapsing
into three vertices of light.

on each crease a flock of birds nests.
On each fingertip a grove of palms in blossom,
swathed in the scarred scarves of holy words and
cradled in the wet arms of your tongue,
expanding and bursting, excoriates and
signifies in forms the isometric etching of its lost song:

"torn asunder by thorn and thunder
born a hart and died a hunter."

comprehending this, i glimpsed in
my own hand the flocks and orchards
fading now but still alight with
bastard wings and pinnate branches
sloughing off my skin to grasp at
what i could not know, as the hand said,