What the Finger Writes, By ALICE WALKER

Your name scrawled on a bit of paper moves me.

And I should beware.

Take my dreaming self beyond the reach

of your cheery letters,

written laboriously with

stubby pencils and grubby

nails.

: What the finger writes the soul can read :

All life was spirit once

a disembodied groping across

the void;

toward the unknown otherness

the flesh is weak and slow

with luck I shall not live there

anymore.

From “Her Blue Body Everything We Know” (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich: $24.95). Born in Eatonton, Ga., and now living in Northern California, Walker is the author of many books of poetry, fiction and nonfiction, including the novel, “The Color Purple.” 1991 by Alice Walker. Reprinted with permission.