hands in waiting
		--------------------------------------------------------

		1.

		these hands were made for loving
		and that's just what they'll do
		and one of these days these hands are gonna
		skate all over you.

		2.

		sitting in the sauna -- beading up
		i examine critically my swimming-bleached
		cuticles my boyish knuckles
		my strong closely-trimmed finger
		nails -- the pink and cream stuff
		a rio friend -- she'd said:
		doctor's.

		but these are not doctor's hands
		not even master's
		they are just my kind of town hands
		the it is still early hands
		meet me at the fountain drop me in the water
		you could pin me like a butterfly hands
		clean hands
		keyboard upon keyboard pentatonic windy city hands

		hands that instantly bruise and blister
		in 20 minutes of kayaking into the wind
		yes of course they harden then yes they do

		hands which will dry out in torrents of dishwashing
		hands that yes have amply gone to love before
		and yes could be called up again
		like willing and able yankee minutemen
		to caress -- for your and our freedom -- for hours.

		but not until they see the whites of your eyes
		yes the hands that say: just say...

		i am sitting in the sauna pearling up and smiling
		at the thought: here is a (little) light (yellow)
		that often goes out

		in the middim sauna light hand-to-mouth existence
		conjures itself unusually calmly -- i am not hardened
		by these visions of man~ana

		i shake the thought
		i turn my hands upside down
		think photographically
		think tactically
		how would these hands stroke your spine
		or brush your hair behind your ears (both at once)
		or as helen writes -- touch (delicately) at the pink claw
		oh helen.

		it is hot and now i am raining
		spot spot drip drip drop
		my nose -- an icicle -- my ears -- a bicycle
		traversing in slush -- in sluicing weather
		yes i am melting
		staining the already dark floor grating
		and glistening

		my hands are your hands 
		in waiting
		
		the rush and the push -- i opened the door --
		yes -- yes even the air has such soft hands
		in waiting

		so anxious to love me -- oh my love
		the hands of blue cool


			Marek Lugowski
			7 July 2000
			Chicago, Illinois