In class I learned about

In class I learned about
class, how all my professors
had all of their fingers

No table-sawed tips
no thumbs numbed under two tons
of crates of Miracle Whip and now dangling
uselessly.

So many lower arms none
having been lost to the second of
having not remembered not to grab the nut
as it slipped into the combine feed

A hook for a hand—be teased
for decades, but no kids ran in fear
of so common place a horror

How easy in class to assume Latin
professors had no fingerprints for they gestured softly with
no soil embedded, permanent tattoos
their finger swirls never fresh-plowed fields

What kind of a life leaves a man’s hands whole?
Hands uncallused, filed clear fingernails,
skin not red and broken by a cold wet wind?