Only Fingertips

Only my fingertips show.

It is spring today. I walk slowly up the hill, slow progress, following the leading shadow with my own footprints. The others lie spread on the young grass, sleeveless and shoeless, all still pale, like corn shucked prematurely.

The laces of my well-worn shoes reach to brush the fraying legs of my pants. Above, my legs are just suggested, just ideas that might have been, blurry shapes up to the hem of the sweatshirt, which replaces all shape with itself. The sleeves are too long, leaving only my fingertips. Only my fingertips show.

The breeze whistles softly through my fingers, as though my sleeves open to the mouths of empty glass bottles, held upside down, inviting resonance.

It looks funny. I know that. But being shucked invites all the wind at once. Being shucked allows too much. I prefer the wind in little pieces I can hold. Only on my fingertips.