Inanimate

An object poem for Creative Writing.

I have slipped down from ancient hands,
moving through their trembling fingers like
rain drops slithering between bony tree branches.
One generation, marked with lines
of age- onto the next.
Soft palms caressed me,
melding with my cool,
rough skin. She held me to her
bosom, as mother does to child.
Carried close to her heart,
nameless and cherished, I but this
humble earth-born creation,
she with hot blood flowing through
her tributary veins.
Time passed, and her hands, too,
became arthritically gnarled, cut deep
with the lines of years gone by;
she kept to the shadows
of her home- our home,
cursing her wasted days. I curled
against her breast, listened.
Slowly, slowly
the beating in her chest paced.
In a final phlegm-riddled
inhale.
Exhale.
The beating silenced, and I wept softly
against her rapidly stiffening shell.
Passed down from death’s
branching fingers
set out before
your eyes, bright and full of life,
life I had longed to have myself.
Your hands, barely showing the paths
time has traveled along your body,
gently lulled me away from
endless flea-market fairy tales.
Brought up to the youthful waters
that were your eyes,
I studied you as you examined me.
“What is it?” you curiously asked of the dark woman
with a red scarf draped over her head. She smiled, shrugged
and offered,”Paperweight?” unsure of what I was herself.
You gladly paid a small fee to take me home,
and now you look at me with a puzzled gaze.
You question the unsteady scrawl lining
the page laid out before you, the one which I sit upon.
You ask me if it is good enough.
I have read all the words your
mind possesses your hand to write down,
and darling, each inkling echo is flawless.
Your furrowed brow relaxes and
the pen dances atop the paper once more.
I watch your hand, resting upon the table top,
its flesh marked with deep grooves,
the pathways time has returned to,
for they are so fit for travel.