One morning, a girl came upon a well
and lowered a pail for water.
When she raised it, sunk
at the bucket’s bottom, she found
two hands. One she sliced
open along its lifeline, peeling back
skin to see bones like twigs.
The other she planted in the yard.
These will be my hands, she said.
They will grow like fences.
They will fly kites.
They will play piano.
They will learn the language of string.
Translate song into rust.
Where I go, they will go.
They will draw maps in moss,
marking borders with the neck of a tulip.
They will tell the story. They will start
with the chapter on tunnels.
Maggie Graber
Maggie Graber is an M.F.A. candidate at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale. Her chapbook, Beads, was a finalist in the Button Poetry Exploding Pinecone Chapbook Contest, and her work has been featured or is forthcoming in Toad, Utter, Avatar Review, and Josephine Quarterly among others. She is lifelong friends with Lake Michigan, lox, and pop-up books.
Photo credit: Leela Bryant, “More Than A Bucket.”
Gingerbread House Lit Mag 