For My Husband's Finger Cut Off in a Steel Mill Accident

By the bridge, my husband's finger sits
too tired to thumb a ride, it watches cool
water swirl, counts herons
diving for fish and sighs.

We all get tired of the road
and thinking, maybe, the next car
might pull over, roll its window down
ask where we're bound.

What if his finger knocked, one day,
at our door, wearing a pop can ring
or new scar, gravel amethyst,
glass shards or brier hooks?

How to greet each other
bandage the canyon
of awkward pauses between friends
separated these many seasons.

After high school, my husband's first job,
graveyard shift, who knows how
the slitter got turned on, his work glove
a boy's mitten filled with a bloody snowball.

Low whispers, the hospital's locker room:
a doctor's hand grabbed sterile pliers,
ripped the dangling finger free—
ordered a pain shot to be given later.

Missing parts get loaded secretly,
box cars taken away in darkness,
they grow pale, wide-eyed and wait
for anybody who'll listen to truth.

You can say no crime happened
in the red mist where a doctor
did things backwards, quickly,
and my husband's pinky finger

was no prince held for ransom,
no famous pilot's son, yet I lift it up,
slide the red chalk across this wall:

Dear world,
 I miss my brothers.
  I was the smallest candle
   on his right hand, all light is needed.

Jeanne Bryner

**************



RL