All The Useless Things These Hands Have Done

      Here's a bizarre little poem that I frankly cannot decide if I like or not. Although I like the conceit at work, I can't say I'm impressed by the belabouring of the metaphor; the poem becomes very heavy-handed, especially with the trite repetition of "arouse[d]" in the last stanza. Either way, I throw it out for you to judge. It's by the American poet Donald Finkel.

Hands The poem makes truth a little more disturbing, like a good bra, lifts it and holds it out in both hands. (In some of the flashier stores there's a model with the hands stitched on, in red or black.) Lately the world you wed, for want of such hands, sags in the bed beside you like a tired wife. For want of such hands, the face of the moon is bored, the tree does not stretch and yearn, nor the groin tighten. Devious or frank, in any case, the poem is calculated to arouse. Lean back and let its hands play freely on you: there comes a moment, lifted and aroused, when the two of you are equally beautiful. (1966)

Meh. Mark Strand or Leonard Cohen would have done a better job with this.