Lou Suarez

Fingers

I like the kindness of fingers,
the way they point to
a specific house or lost shoe
or, more generally, up
a shoreline or skyward.

I like the way they count
small quantities—one orange
in the fruit bowl, three
beer bottles in the trash—
eschewing plenty.

On a child’s hand, a finger
will dig anywhere it’s told to:
in mud, a hive, the child’s nose.
Pressed against his mother’s
lips, it says, “Quiet” or

“Calm down now.” It wipes
tears away. Even a finger
stiff with anger or lust
is blameless, like a dog
beaten with a stick

so long it learns to bare
its teeth to anyone who touches
its tender flesh, to bite
any hand that comes to it,
no matter how benevolent.