Sawmill, December Morning

Your CB handle, Knothead, didn't flatter
but did acknowledge your stubborness,
gnarled and skint
like your hands from hooking logs
with bark as gray as the smoke that swirled
above the burn pile,
cinders growing like debts,
on mornings so cold that caws froze
in the throats of crows.
When the saw blade bit your fingers
off, your teeth
could not unclench. The sawdust soaked up
bright blood. You wrapped
the fingertips in a handkerchief
and took them home
stuffed in an overall pocket, like buckeyes
for curiosity or luck,
sat at the oilcloth-covered table
under a dim bulb
and saw for the first time all you really were.
Dropping the alien
fingertips into a Mason jar, you watched
them float
like blunt fetuses in the kerosene,
then screwed the lid down tight
and buried the jar
under a chinaberry tree,
expecting nothing from that old ritual.

In memoriam, M. C.