The Third Hand

Ray Gonzalez

The third hand rose in the year of the body, gave itself an eye plucked out of harmony and what was touched by the lost child. The third hand resolved to hold onto justice before the river of the disenchanted world swept it away. This meant strange evolutions and tattoos on proud skin, guides toward ecstasy involving great relationships among individuals who previously distrusted each other.

The third hand assumed the physical space of the master, made a fist in response to the ocean approaching from the west, shadows and monuments flowing as if their foundations were being questioned by the hand opening its fist and spreading its fingers, palm upward, the arm extended in the air as if someone was being arrested.

The third hand developed a pattern of comfort that appeared in the books when they were studied. Tranquility was a hand signal that awoke the shadows in the vein of the wrist, made it revolve around a softening touch. The darkness in the knuckles meant a hidden thing would be revealed. The third hand obeyed and was caught between the left and the right hands, a moment when it prevailed in stark confusion and contrast to the pair of hands that folded into themselves and let the vine climb through the arms.