Fingernail Clippers Poem by Hans Ostrom

I don't know what they're called

in Italian or Russian or Turkish

but I intend to find out.



They are a singular plural

in English. One of them

is a stylized icon: a sea

creature of lore had a

gigantic, snub-nosed head

and a tapering body. Our

digital blacksmiths hammer

out replicas.



Lever and fulcrum and

paired toothless blades:

the spare architecture

of a specialized tool.



Owing to his mania,

the reclusive billionaire

eschewed clippers and let

his fingernails accrue

like stalactites. They clicked

like scurrying roaches.



Crows and monkeys groom

each other, picking bugs

from feathers and fur. A calm

comes over them as they pick

and peck. Thinking of them,

I clip a thumbnail- hiding,

like them, from hunger and

fear for a moment, attending

silently to a bodily chore.





hans ostrom 2020