Hand

And this hand you just touched
Eventually will be just dust
And the bones underneath
Will fossilize while you sleep
And our race could be extinct
And this city buried deep
And some furry three-eyed thing
Could dig me up and start to think

What this man was
Whose this hand was
Why it’s shaped in such a way and 
how these creatures lived this way

And could they tell
The way it felt
And could they guess
Who it caressed

And if my bones could then be cloned
And if they left me all alone
To study closely and to see
Exactly what a human means
I don’t believe, I don’t expect
I don’t imagine they could tell

How this hand was
Who this man was
Why I act in such a way and 
how I ever lived that way.

~ June 2002