back across the thick wooden slab worn grey by a lifetime of Saturdays. He leaves the store and crosses against the light, stuffing the empty bag in a litter basket screwed to a pole. His mind goes prickly, as it always does in new towns, this close to action; he palms the cutters and walks the three blocks -- nodding as he goes: here to a shopper, there to a child on his bike, an old man rotting on a wooden bench bolted to the sidewalk. He slows his pace at the walkway, takes it in stride, and enters the vestibule, moving respectfully to the parlor on his left where clots of mourners ignore him. The rhythm in his chest picks up, his mouth dries out, he kneels -- crossing himself alone, and takes what he has come for. Its nail needs trimming but if I pull the scissors from their case I will surely ease them in under the nail spreading a sleek white path back through the quick A week ago I slammed it in a door it pulsed and bled in my mouth Last night I lay for hours with it tucked under its hand flicking it out from hiding to flex it adjusting to the fact that I might someday remove it by the drop of the kitchen cleaver without a thumb a hand is less a hand They tense up sometimes as though they need something to do as though they might rise flapping from