hands off | hands on

hands are for holding, for heeding, for
    helping | for knitting blankets and weaving
    stories | for signing our voices, for lifting
    and praying | and hands are for caring

a parent’s and child’s, the curve of my
     mother’s fingers hovering | and mine,
     now untangling, my thumb feeling F
     and finding the chord 

news from this land shatters accord
    dread notes dominating | a new disregard
    for human life | people mis-handled, removed
    from homes | greed fixing on friends and

distant places: Greenland and Ukraine
    squeezed by aggressor hands | and even
    Heard Island residents on the list | so
    world markets plunge but penguins 

stand tall while streets fill with people
    with hand-crafted signs | reaching each
    other, in this heady week, this week of
    a record-breaking speech

on the Senate floor, momentum building
     – but will they stretch hands across the
    aisle, find the right chord | protests flare
    while billionaires golf | we are calling

for our world to be in better hands | and
    now, a new week | I am walking in an airport
    gallery with brightly woven panels: the  
   ‘Welcome Blanket – stitching together the

fabric of our nation’, tangible proof of
    shared humanity | and there: ‘staple
    drawings’, intricate and floating | both saying
    what hands can do, both hands on hope

Michelle Elvy

after the Hands Off marches across the nation, April 07 2025
artworks: ‘The Welcome Blanket’ project; Chenhung Chen’s series ‘Awake in the Dream’

Michelle Elvy is a writer, editor and teacher of creative writing. Her books include the everrumble and the other side of better, she has edited numerous anthologies, including Te Moana o Reo | Ocean of Languages, edited with Vaughan Rapatahana (The Cuba Press), and the forthcoming Poto! Iti te kupu, nui te kōrero| Short! The big book of small stories, edited with Kiri Piahana-Wong (MUP).