The disease in Peter's hand meant

he could not stretch his fingers and so, the story goes,

subsequent popes blessed with the same

fingers’ crumble, some digits stretched up,

some clenched in.

What can we make with our hands?

Never quite what we wanted. Never quite the dead reborn

nor the words as we heard them, never the second's

slippage, nor the human call.

Tonight people sleep in the open air, die there,

and though we try, our imaginations

cannot make them us.

I throw up my hands, we say, or

my head is Hell enough.

We crush our fingers together.

This is all we can make.