sIX FINGERs 
 a love story
  
 He was born with six fingers 
 on each hand
 scalpel applied in a secret room
 Precision clean cut no trace
 Only a few knew 
  Cautioned not to reproduce
 He was fine with that
 A captain of industry
 A hellion
 A brute
 An unrepentant supply of evil
 A success
 Five remaining fingers
 On each hand
  Vice grips on all there was to have
 They named him man of the year
 In his private garden
 Of forever green grass
 And the blue eye sky
 He prospered
  
 She was born with six fingers 
 on each hand
 They tied them off with dirty string 
 let them fall back into origin
 Scars of protruding keloid
 Are even darker than her total gold
 Everyone knew
 Everyone whispered
 She was a hellion
 A brute
 An unrepentant supply of evil
 A bad mother
 A failed woman
 They named her witch
 Assigned designations without power to change
 Five remaining fingers on each hand
 barley clinging 
 to that thirsty branch
 Of the diseased tree
 She struggled
  
 They came upon each other one day.  It was a chance meeting, another arrangement of the universe.  After all, their worlds were separated, divergent, inequivalent yet equally actual.
  
 She was weary yet determined, walking slowly, the sidewalk seeming to grab at her steps as if to stop her progress.  This was nothing new.  Everything in life seemed to do that to her.  Yet she continued.
  
 He was on the same sidewalk, head in the air, walking briskly.  Too briskly to notice the woman he was heading toward. 
  
 And then they collided.  He was beyond angry that she had interfered with his forward progress. No one had even done that before. No one. He instinctively pushed her to the ground.  That was his nature.
  
 She knew she had to protect herself.  She knew immediately she was on her own. If she had to fight, that was what she would do.  He would not be the first she had to battle. He would not be the last she would best.
  
 She lay there looking up at him, one of her hands shielding her eyes from his blue glare.
  
 And that is when he saw the scar on her hand.
  
 He immediately knew what it was and what it meant.
  
 He reached down to help her up.
  
 She wondered why and did not trust.
  
 Jarring clarity took him to his knees.
  
 He took her hand and ran his fingers across the scar.
  
 She embraced the bond of blue sky and golden sun.
  
 They knew their real names.
  
 Holding hands and rising together to their feet,
  
 Now beyond circumstance
  
 Strength and Hope walked on.

Copyright © Sheryl J. Bize-Boutte 2021