Hand For Hand Poem by P K Joy

You’ve chopped off my right hand
With your reaping hook,
Rendered me one-handed
And thus vengeance you took.

I didn’t complain against your act
For my hand deserved to be cut.
You ought to have done it much before.
You gave me ten years’ parole.

This was the hand I used
To gag and tie your father
And rape your helpless mother
When, as fear-struck boy you hid.

I had been watching you growing,
Flexing your muscle and showing
Your irreversible determination
To inflict on me bloody retaliation.

If it were in earlier years
I would have perhaps resisted.
But in ten years I have realized
That what I did was heinous.

My left hand why have you spared?
There’s good reason for both to be sheared.
Here, I offer, fearlessly take it.
Either cut off, or make use of it uncut!