after what most
couldn't call a night
you awaken to a congeries
of churlish sutures
snaking up the palm
of your resurrected hand.

your brain sends signals
to the mangled meat
and gristle

it welters and spasms;
it pulls and tears free;
nothing does what it's
supposed to

slowly,
after the rigors of
attempting function
have cramped the
the lower sinews
of your arm;

after tiny confused
and clumsy movements
yielding but a tiny
wriggle in what you
once called a finger

blood starts to pool
and seep
past the spidered
black threads and
last night’s
cellular adhesions

a slowly forming stigmata
growing to resemble
what once you were
taught to be;
what once
it might have been

a healing hand of christ;
a hand of longing
and forgiveness;

of redemption