Bitten

Bleeding

Always healing

Nails

And nail beds

All uneven

Under nails

Skin, blood, spit

The ritual, the survival, the instinct

Smaller hands learning to move things

Grabbing, pushing, pulling

Control, order, undoing

There must be something that needs fixing, correcting, dissecting

Some small, quick satisfaction these two hands can bring

I must check

I must check

If I don’t check how can I correct

Hands constrained to ritual

Born from a need

The soothing

Only a mother’s hands can bring

Hands just as unavailable, just as habitually