Poetry from Sheryl Bize-Boutte
Published on 07/01/2021 by Synchronized Chaos International Magazine
sIX FINGERs
a love story
He was born with six fingers
on each hand
scalpel applied in a secret room
Precision clean cut no trace
Only a few knew
Cautioned not to reproduce
He was fine with that
A captain of industry
A hellion
A brute
An unrepentant supply of evil
A success
Five remaining fingers
On each hand
Vice grips on all there was to have
They named him man of the year
In his private garden
Of forever green grass
And the blue eye sky
He prospered
She was born with six fingers
on each hand
They tied them off with dirty string
let them fall back into origin
Scars of protruding keloid
Are even darker than her total gold
Everyone knew
Everyone whispered
She was a hellion
A brute
An unrepentant supply of evil
A bad mother
A failed woman
They named her witch
Assigned designations without power to change
Five remaining fingers on each hand
barley clinging
to that thirsty branch
Of the diseased tree
She struggled
They came upon each other one day. It was a chance meeting, another arrangement of the universe. After all, their worlds were separated, divergent, inequivalent yet equally actual.
She was weary yet determined, walking slowly, the sidewalk seeming to grab at her steps as if to stop her progress. This was nothing new. Everything in life seemed to do that to her. Yet she continued.
He was on the same sidewalk, head in the air, walking briskly. Too briskly to notice the woman he was heading toward.
And then they collided. He was beyond angry that she had interfered with his forward progress. No one had ever done that before. No one. He instinctively pushed her to the ground. That was his nature.
She knew she had to protect herself. She knew immediately she was on her own. If she had to fight, that was what she would do. He would not be the first she had to battle. He would not be the last she would best.
She lay there looking up at him, one of her hands shielding her eyes from his blue glare.
And that is when he saw the scar on her hand.
He immediately knew what it was and what it meant.
He reached down to help her up.
She wondered why and did not trust.
Jarring clarity took him to his knees.
He took her hand and ran his fingers across the scar.
She embraced the bond of blue sky and golden sun.
They knew their real names.
Holding hands and rising together to their feet,
Now beyond circumstance
Strength and Hope walked on.
copyright ©2021 by Sheryl J. Bize-Boutte
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