This week in the PEN Poetry Series, PEN America features a poem by Jacqueline Waters. 

Heel of My Hand
 

You are
as attentive
with me
as a friend
patiently
remove
first your left      
then right
earphone
each time
my lips
part

 

Keeping
this attention
is key to
getting through
I think
or everyone
thinks (my
thoughts just
a bristle from
their brush)

 

You recommend
a delay in
investigation
(you say
justice
is always
best when
delayed)
and press
the pen
to the
paper’s most
unforgiving
places

 

You are
to me
a big ‘how’
(like no one
—they say—
asks a billionaire

why they made
2 billion dollars
they just ask
how)
 

Oh how I
used to think
I needed
someone to
hold my hands
to the piano
at the bar
that everyone
would rather
no one played

 

How I used
to want more
clarifications
and how I used
to want (I
cannot tell
you how
desperately
I wanted)
to call them
(the wants)
a surcharge

 

on the price
of admitting
to preference
for I preferred
you above
others
clownish
though it
made
me seem

 

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Once a week, the PEN Poetry Series publishes work by emerging and established writers from coast to coast. Subscribe to the PEN Poetry Series mailing list and have poems delivered to your e-mail as soon as they are published (no spam, no news, just poems).