It lands on my mailbox,
A different sort of post,
An early warning
Of a coming due date.
This severed hand,
With fingers curling
In toward its palm,
Could make a fist
Prepared to strike,
A quiet threat I brush away.
Hastening up my long front walk,
My autumn lawn surrounds me,
Its still-green life
Littered with such hands,
Signs of decay,
Discarded paws
That shrivel, darken,
Crumble into bits,
Vanish into soil,
Banished from my mind.
But look how they come
Up through the grass,
Grasping at my pant legs,
Ascending from their exile
Below the cooling ground.
Crackling, cackling,
They insist on acknowledgement,
Even as I crush them beneath my shoes,
Kick them away from my stout front door,
Rush inside with wrinkled shaking hands.
I love this poem! It hits on several different levels, and I like the mix of it all.
Thanks, Gina. I’ve had this image of a dead leaf that looks like a hand with curling fingers hanging around in my mind for many years. Something about the pandemic, that feeling it gives you sometimes that death is all around you, finally helped me understand what I wanted to say about the leaf.