The Feel of Hands by Thom Gunn

The Feel of Hands

The hands explore tentatively,

two small live entities whose shapes

I have to guess at. They touch me

all, with the light of fingertips

testing each surface of each thing

found, timid as kittens with it.

I connect them with amusing

hands I have shaken by daylight.

There is a sudden transition:

they plunge together in a full-

formed single fury; they are grown

to cats, hunting without scruple;

they are expert and desperate.

I am in the dark. I wonder

when they grew up. It strikes me that

I do not know whose hands they are.