the severed hand speaks

when it first crawled
the stump stung
but it realized somewhere
within the ring of bottomless pain
at its base
that it was feeling

and because it was feeling
it was thinking
if only in that strange way
that we all quiver in powerlessness
when overcome with agony
like a child banished to the corner
by a teacher we secretly want to kill

and then it realized
that it once had a teacher, too —
an instructor of American Sign Language
who used to rap its knuckles
when it misproduced
(which was the teacher’s way
of saying mispronounced)
simple expressions and gestures

and so it did know how to communicate
now, without mouth or head
and the dismembered hands’ first words
were an empty angry clutching,
a stiffly silent scream