Ardennes Campaign -- December 1944
At first glance, he thinks
a glove --
a lady's three-button dropped
in harrowed mud. It has
that length precisely.
There is no blood in it.
Come in, it says, its
emptied gesture
____________
At last, a poem to replace the dreadful "Landing" as the "first glimpse of war" poem in Ghost Maps. Readers of The Memory of Trees have seen this mistaken glove before -- this is its original context.
"Come in," it says...
Yes, harrowing.
One suggestion: don't put Hand in the title. Maybe call it The Glove.
Save the realization for later, when it creeps in.
Except that at least one reader didn't pick up that the he-thinks-a-glove is in fact a severed hand -- even with the existing title. "The Glove" would throw people I think.
How about "Clean Off"?
I
think that it is fine. There is a moment when you don't realise what it is that he is looking at - a moment when you think it might be a glove, and then the title registers, right about the time you read the line, "There is no blood in it."
Dissonance. Realization. It works.