by Caleb Andrew Ward
If you wanted, you could hold the sun in the palm of your hand today.
It would only go where you tell it to go. It would only stay when you said, stay.
I tried to hold the sun, but my hand wasn’t sturdy enough. I didn’t have the calloused hands you have. I didn’t have the scars on my face. I didn’t have those sunken eyes and furrowed brow to keep the sun from staining my eyes.
Your eyes have that glassy look that old dogs have, and so you can look all you want.
When I tried to hold the sun it burnt my hands. It’s too hot for me to hold. I ended up scarring my fingers with moon-shaped patterns that wrap around my fingertips. I tried again to hold the sun and dropped it in the process. I burnt the grass and fields I lived on. It set my Earth on fire. I almost burned you, but before the fire went wild you picked the sun back up, with your calloused hands and scarred fingertips you slid the sun back in place.
You could hold the sun in your hands today, but today you don’t have to.