Circular

By

Everyone with two
hands has options.
He stuck one
in the circular
saw he was being
taught to run.
It was his first
day at the factory.
He knew what
they were making:
a man he didn’t
mean to be.
After it happened,
he held both arms
up—like a prize-
fighter might. There
was blood every-
where, and bits
of bone, there
was a whole
life before him,
and someone packing
that hand in ice, in
case some son-
of-a-bitch might
try to reattach
him to the circle
he was leaving.

 

(winner of the Editors Prize in Poetry for issue 30)