FINGERS:

Finger by tiny little finger, counted at the babe´s new birth,

Finger marking the Holy cross, welcoming the babe to earth,

Pounding little fingers, kneading at soft milky mama´s breast,

Curled in tight pink rosebuds, when the little fingers are at rest.

Floury little fingers, making cookies & mud cakes each in turn,

In Mummy´s mixing bowls, then in muddy brown puddles churn,

Grasping, wriggling, sticky & chocolatey, soft, sweet melty & warm,

Fingers smelling sweetly talcumed on awakening in the rosy dawn.

From grimy fingers, stub-nails so chewed, scuffed, gnawed & bitten,

To the neatly cleaned & filed, when love arrives & is truly smitten,

Fingers sinfully groping in sweaty, smutty, secret & hot orgasmic sin,

Writing poems of love with fingers crossed, screwed & tossed in bin.

Fingers holding on to gripping hands, in rings & tight clenched “I do´s”,

Promising the undying love & the avowed “I´ll never ever leave you´s”,

The touching, the loving, the feeling, & the lifelong holding & sharing,

The fecund belly traced & stroked with anticipated new babe´s bearing.

The silent whispered prayer with hushed finger-tip to life-lived sacred lip,

Finger lifted chalice for the last drop of sanguine wine to savour, sup & sip,

Fingers, signed, sealed & delivered at birth, forgiving through all life´s strife,

Fingers, now slack in the last prayings, giving thanks for the now loosened life.