your hands the most

Your hands the most.
Small and very brown.
The rings - too heavy
for those little fingers -

but so pretty! Turquoise
and gold from Spain.
And one diamond, large.
Shining, dancing. Always

flying through the air
as you spoke and laughed,
illustrating your story.
Little shooting stars.

The nails always so neat.
Manicured and sleek.
I would sit on my fingers,
embarrassed and jealous.

Sitting on your big chair,
knees pulled up. Gold shoes.
Your skin crumpled,
worn. Too much life

for that skin. Too much
sun and laughter.
Your eyes, behind those
expensive glasses. Glittering.

But your hands the most.
Waving, fluttering, shining.
Weaving spells and magic.
So still now. So cold.

"Your hands the most" what? Your hand the most beautiful? The most ugly? And grammatically "Your hands are the most."

I don't really have anything to pick at, other than the subject matter. What am I supposed to take away from this? What is the point behind it?

The last line left me in a bit of a haze. "So still now." I assume it is her hands that are still. "So cold." I assume she is cold, and dead? To go from such a jumpy, glittery topic, to something like that doesn't work; and we're left without information. Maybe if you said "They are so still now." and took out the "so cold" all together, and rather than giving one line to this area of the poem, give it a whole verse?

It was well written, I'm so glad to see someone actually punctuating their poetry But I really couldn't connect to it, or get any feelings from it. From what I've learned and through experience, people read poetry because they want to receive some feeling from it; or they want to relate. I think it would be easy for you to fix this, since it is rather well written. Try to bring the reader in more, so we can share emotions with you.

Hope I was helpful!

I have to say I'm rather fond of the beginning there, in its fragment.

'Your hands the most' - it brought my imagining to a point, directly; and by what follows it falls right into context of the narrator's voice and experience.

Describing the hands told so much, and in such short, sharp pieces. One image after another, in snapshot - it let time pass in pictures. That I liked without a doubt.

Too much
sun and laughter.
Your eyes, behind those
expensive glasses. Glittering.

Excuse my lack of articulation on this: But somehow 'expensive' felt out-of-place - whether the syllables or the idea itself. It seemed a jump from hands, and expensive - odd against brown-hands, rings, sun and laughter. That may merely be me.

The fragments punctuated, and set the rhythm. The hands held the focus, and told a story/experience in a strong voice, child-like. ^_^

(I don't tend to critique poetry... I hope that's not depressingly clear.)


IMP

I agree with Claudette. "Your hands the most..." what? Maybe you could add different adjectives there to indicate how the character ages. I also agree that you need to add more to the part where the character dies. I'm not sure, but I think you're trying to convey the youth, aging, and death of some wealthy, beautiful person. If I'm right, you do an excellent job with the imagery of her youth, but it would be nice if there was more on the aging/dying part. Keep writing!

I became a little confused. I thought it was just going to be about hands from your title, (which might I add, I rather liked) but I expected more detail in this. It was awing and I couldn't really get deep into, but just glaze over the top. Maybe if you went more into what the hands were the most and out of what other things, it could actually be a better poem.

Keep at it!
-Rieda