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With These Hands

Jeremy Radin

Alternative content

after Bruce Springsteen

A man opens his chest onstage.
From his chest
the animals come:
bison, grizzlies, eagles, wolves.
All made of light.
We are moving in the pit,
arms in the air, palms open,
wildness falling into our fingers.
Holding up the light
that lifts us. Calling to the dead.
Coming apart in their pipes, their horns. Our blood
moves to the front of our bodies.
Drawn toward the shining beasts.
The good dead, holy and blaring.
They prowl among us.
They tear into our flesh, opening
our veins, our grief. Only our blood
is left, our bloodlight foaming;
it joins theirs and they grow larger.
Blood ends and blood begins.
Blood ends and light begins.
We are broken dams.
We are goddamn broken.
We are God: dams broken.
There is only the noise, the song in our mouths,
the light in our ears, the lifting, the lifting,
these hands and hands
and the presence
of hands. These brief, ecstatic,
grieving, lifting
hands.