Child Hands in Practice

Laura Winton

Child hands in practice tell the moon when to finish the day. When all the lessons are put away the water holds our faces in wave memories. The oceans are deeper than the sky; our bodies are full of water like the earth. A song you’ll never learn lures you to the chamber, dances on doll fingers tone deaf in the sun. Words are woven by widows while imaginary brothers created from toy wishes read tea leaves in the purple of a gloomy friday.

Once I was a pirate or a mer
                    (maid)          buried under the sea now I

look for my lost self patchwork stone beach skulls sing me back to the shore to drown. I found you shipwrecked, hands over your ears chanting a language you’ve never spoken, a picture of nonsense, a photo of nothing.

The oceans are deeper than our bodies.
The sky is full of water
          it rains infinities
                         like the earth.

© 2006, Laura Winton

---

Laura Winton (aka Fluffy Singler) is a writer and performer whose work has been published in print and online journals around the world. She has performed extensively in the Minneapolis/Twin Cities area including the Minnesota Fringe Festival, Frinj of the Frinj, Patrick’s Cabaret, the Walker Art Center, and many open mics, cabarets and readings over the past ten years. She has also been seen at events in New York, Chicago and London, including LadyFest Midwest and Manhattan Theatre Source, among others. Currently pursuing her Ph.D. in theatre, her artistic and scholarly work is devoted to the liberation of the imagination as a political act and the use of language to engender a creative response in the audience.

Back to the first poem > “41 for Diallo”
Back to the article > Karawane: Tale of a Zine