"Grief of Hands Burned to Dust" & "Boroughs" by Mirm Hurula

Grief of Hands Burned to Dust

I just thought about how I won’t hold your hand again

the wrinkles all over each knuckle

you’ve been using them since you pulled the taro

out of the ground as a child back in Samoa

And when you first came here with my father

the first thing you did was cleaning

cleaning the offices of higher ups and those who flew

and sometimes you would talk of the private jets being cleaned

if I could look at your hands again

I would be able to find Tom Cruise in your hands

or that is the story you always told me

cleaned his private jet

the difference between you and him

will always be your oily hands whenever I grabbed them

because you always had to put hand lotion on

you’d get so upset with yourself every time

your long nails would accidentally scratch me

though it was a complete accident

I still remember your touch nine months later

And it doesn’t feel any better that I won’t

feel the individual wrinkles across your middle finger

or the curved that almost always made a ‘c’

            on every fingernail

and when my fingernails were long enough

you’d try taking out the dirt from underneath them

like I didn’t know how

and you know I am a nail biter

The look of disappointment every time I came home from college

cause my nails were behind my fingertips

            the sun behind the hills

            not even the morning sun to peek through

I don’t know how to use my hands with long nails

     I use my fingertips for everything

       Typing this poem out for the first time

              First on my phone then computer

I love the sound the computer makes every time a letter

Comes through, a new thought, new pain—                the juxtaposition

of that comfort typing is

I miss my mom more

Boroughs

Often unaware are they

for fortune is on their side

whole animals burrow inside

looking to make a home

where no one has

“to the left of the belly fat”

“just south of the scapular, if

you’ve made it to the ass

you’ve gone too far”

a burrow is a burrow is

a burrow

a burrow of pain to bring

all of me to the tables

sat at, forgotten pillows

only bring regret

new homes to burrow

in old neighborhoods

Mirm Hurula is a Samoan American writer creating and publishing pieces of stories they needed growing up. They write of heartbreak without the ability to make it succinct, of heart just opening at the fluttering brought on by another, of wisdom that a 26 year-old should not know.