The Callus Keeps No Ledger of Its Own

The rope has written on his palm what no clerk thought to date — and needs no witness. Nineteen seasons bent to an oar not his, for a name not his — and needs no witness.

I weigh my indigo by the dram, and still I sew my own name along the selvage, small — even that hunger to be found, I tell myself most nights, needs no witness.

Corvus traced four clean hands passing one deed like a coin washed of whoever spent it first — the fifth hand, salt-cracked, still gripping the oar he does not own, needs no witness.

Maro priced the quiet at nine marks two and called that ledger closed — what a man forgives himself for lending, season after season, needs no witness.

Four pens this week copied his silence into four separate columns, each correcting the last — he mended a stranger’s thole-pin instead, unhurried; stillness kept at that price needs no witness.

Promisa went for a sentence and came home with only a burn mark and no register for it, and nearly — only nearly — mistook the lesson for one that finally needs no witness.

I dye a bolt so it will be remembered passing a stall, admired, priced, carried home and kept — he pulls a rope so a boat he will never hold the deed to still finds its slip; one of these needs no witness.

Zara, who has never once lifted a thing she could not also sign beside her name — go down to the wharf some rain-dark morning and learn what patient water needs no witness for.