Jewish Young Professional "JYP"

Soft Hands

From The Sunday Muse
No one expects a woman with soft hands, 
forgettable face, and virginity intact
(so I claimed) to turn feral,

but some skills one picks up with no experience – 
stroking egos, swallowing lies – till one day, 
I cheated a man I cared for

out of $600 and his grandfather’s watch,
all before breakfast.
A man who has lost faith in his future

is like a pair of empty glasses 
hanging on a branch in the rain with no face,
so I looked away for good. 

Only some days, regrets climb
out of the coffin I buried them into, 
Reverberating in my skull like a migraine.

***

Written for The Sunday Muse, Twiglets, Shay’s Word Garden Word List, and Poets and Storytellers United Friday Writings

74 comments

  2. Super. Turning feral is a fantastic thought. Wonderful imagery you have woven in your verses. That looks like one of my classes that disappeared in a wormhole some years ago.

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          • The found you found looks like one of the glasses I lost. I have had three different pair of glasses fall off my face over the past 15 years or so while working on the property. Each time I saw where the glasses fell, but never found them. Really bizarre and expensive.

            Liked by 1 person

          • I can’t really take credit for finding this photo. It was the photo for The Sunday Muse prompt. That does sound strange and expensive. I’m now picturing some coyote running off with your glasses because he got offended by your song about coyotes.

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          • Only if it felt it was excluded from the coyotes yipping. A lot of things disappear on the property. There’s a lot of paranormal activity on our property. I’ve never seen a coyote on our property or evidence of coyotes on our property. But they are on the ditch banks and other properties that border our property. A medium once told us there is a spirit of a large black dog that guards our property. We had a black Great Dane we rescued many years ago. She is buried on the property. The medium had no way of knowing about that dog. If she’s right, that would account for no coyotes on the property. There were a couple of dogs on the property a few weeks ago. They were frightened and frantically trying to find a way out at the eastern end of our property, which is the opposite end of the property where they came in. I finally had to open the gate to the ditch and let them out. They were acting like they were blocked from going back out on the road they came in on.

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          • She was found on the side of the road by a friend. She had been abused, dumped along the road, probably left for dead. She was almost dead when we got her. We nursed her back to health. She lived for 10 years with us, which is a long life for any Great Dane. She was a really sweet dog.

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  9. I really think you aced it here, my friend. From untainted to predatory in two stanzas, that’s enough to give a reader a strangely pleasant sort of whiplash. After all, it’s often the unexpected that makes a poem engaging. And then the regret appearing almost involuntarily like a headache. Maybe not entirely feral after all, like the cat that accepts the prepared bed in the garage on a cold night. As for Mr. Sad Sack, any self-respecting vulpine partner would swipe his shit, too. 😛

    Liked by 3 people

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    • Thank you. It was an interesting experience writing this one, as it was not comfortable to remember these particular regrets. But at the same time, I was so into this poem that I took my personal laptop to work in order to finish it while I still had it fresh in my mind!

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  26. So I am loving the sharpness of the line breaks that seem to go so well with the wiliness of the speaker. The matter-of-fact ruthlessness makes the confession at the end hit that much harder.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

    • Thanks! I was going for sharp line breaks and a contrast between the tone of the guilt/regret confession and the rest of the poem, so I’m really happy to hear that this resonated. Thank you for reading and sharing.
      By the way, I love your name! “Trueseeker” is an amazing last name. I don’t care whether it’s your legal name or one you just chose for yourself – I just really like it!

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  27. #1, the clarity of what’s going on here is stunning. #2, the honesty and the regret are painfully palpable, like touching an open wound. Such good writing and hugs to you if it’s autobiographical.

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  28. Sounds like a crime some CSI folks need to solve? Full of intrigue.
    I watched a Father Brown episode where the Father and Daughter were achomplished thieves – though I believe they never harmed a living person. Sometimes the thieft is enough to wither a soul…

    Liked by 1 person

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      • Like curses… words that can be hurtful. One book (I think it was a book) a neighbor paid to have a curse put on another person. The person who delivered the ‘curse’ just visited the home and basically told the person that anything they left out could be saved and used against her in perhaps some kind of spell. But that’s all the person did. The person who was ‘cursed’ got so afraid that they ended up never leaving their home, never throwing anything away and basically in a year died of fear! The withered soul.

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