I watched her broken fingers
Touching me with gentle love.
She had been tortured by
Experts seeking information
On her fellow partisans.
She had not broken.
Her fingers had but,
Somehow had healed,
Crooked but still able,
To transmit the touch
Of love to a young man,
Innocent as yet of those
Who would destroy love.
(A true story. She had been a teenage courier for the Polish underground and had been tortured by the Gestapo.)
Donovan Baldwin