fully formed

let me count your knuckles
     [one, two, three]
each a time we've come this close
     [four, five, six]
bumps under my fingers I know well
     [seven, eight, nine]
the space between longer and more prominent
     [ten, eleven, twelve]
held together by threads thin as self
     [thirteen, fourteen, fifteen]
easy to slide over, as if never there
     [sixteen, seventeen, eighteen]
but if I bent them back to feed you
     [nineteen, twenty, twenty-one]
they would fall heavy on your tongue
     [twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four]
and roll in your stomach like bad memories
     [twenty-five, twenty-six, twenty-seven]
on the last knot, I wait for skin to grow
     [twenty-eight]