BURNING HOUSE PRESS

Ridges in my fingernails––   

worrisome trenches, etchings that  

presage diseases and loss, niches where 

suspicion insinuates itself. Instead I summon:  

ridges of my knuckles, thumb-tucked fists,   

taut brown skin tallowed over the bone   

as I brace to take on the icy lake, 

to punch the water’s skin;