Corey Cook, One-Year-Old-Hands

Corey Cook
ONE-YEAR-OLD-HANDS

“[She] cannot stop taking the hands from room to room, learning the names of everything [she] wants.” – Wesley McNair

Hands that swipe day old spaghetti from the trashcan, pull
fistfuls of fur from the cat’s broad back. Hands that dump

boxes of crackers on the kitchen floor, leave smear marks
on doors and windows. Hands that take a carton of heavy

cream from grocery bag to the “cupboard” under the living
room chair, fiddle with the knobs on the stove. Hands that rip

pages from the $75.00 book of photographs on the coffee table,
swat at siblings intent on taking toys away. Hands we coax away

from wanting with sing song voices, guide away with curled
fingers, distract from wanting with smiling faces and puckered lips.

Author’s Comment: As I witnessed my youngest daughter’s hands becoming busier and busier this past Spring I would often think of Wesley McNair’s poem, “The Longing of the Feet.” I revisited the poem and the passage that appears above became the springboard for this piece.

Bio: Corey Cook is the author of two chapbooks: Rhododendron in a Time of War (Scars Publications) and What to Do with a Dying Parakeet (Pudding House Publications). His poems has appeared in Ballard Street Poetry Journal, Chiron Review, Entelechy International, Ibbetson Street, Loch Raven Review, Nerve Cowboy, Pearl, Plain Spoke, Willard & Maple and elsewhere. New work is forthcoming in The Aurorean and The Legendary. Corey edits The Orange Room Review with his wife, Rachael. They live in Vermont with their two daughters.