The owner of the wooden hand

The owner of the wooden hand

The owner of the wooden hand,
gaunt, unshaven, legs of stone.
Drops office key in tracksuit pocket,
5.10am, Sunday, June.

Unpeeling blistering, brand-name footwear,
stretching slim, anaemic feet.
Forced in Friday's nylon cast offs,
inside-out, ill-fitting, cheap,
under the nethermost depths of desk.
Above which
neon light of monitor
stares unblinking
from work-station top.
Owner switches it off, then on again.
Persistently groaning, it strains to boot up.

Bottle-green-bottle gleams serenely,
in the face of monitor bleeps.
Pedestrian label offering mutely,
marzipan and boiled sweets.
Not comfort-zone Bells or Famous Grouse,
But a birthday present from the owner's brother.
And in the absence of any other,
without any question the whisky of choice.
The ex birthday boy adds to the dregs, the equivalent
of possibly polluted water, direct from the kitchen tap.

Some whisky is better straight.
Cask number 76.31
from the vaults
of Leith
isn't.

Poking narrow nose into half-pint glass all the better to smell
it.
Scouring troubled eye across urine clouds, the better to see it.
Pressing lump filled gums on unyielding rim, all the better to feel
it,
he licks his purple lips before he sips.

Smell of abandoned socks.
Colour of varnished toys.
Texture of granite rocks.
Aftertaste of unwashed cups.
Foretaste of hangovers yet to come.
The last of his bit of cask,
irreversibly burrows a downward path.

An intricately jointed wooden finger
points from the window.
With no intent.
Keys flutter
as the owner
feels for tobacco
fruitlessly

Giving up the search, as sun hits shoulder.
Inbox takes the hand's man over.