Seventeen Minutes

Seventeen minutes
to what might, at first telling,
sound like a perfect ending—
heat, friction,
bodies working toward
a practiced surrender.

But such encounters,
in my experience,
rarely leave
the fingertips bloodied.
No—
this is a quieter struggle.
A duel
between nerve and cloth.

The adversary:
a cheap plastic disc
posing as mother-of-pearl,
stitched smugly
to the cuff of a shirt.

Parkinson’s has already entered the room—
uninvited,
but entirely in charge
of the choreography.
The fingers tremble
like nervous conspirators.
Signals leave the brain
confident and clear,
but arrive
like drunken messengers.

The slit of fabric waits—
tight, narrow,
impatient with hesitation.
I line it up.
Miss.
Again.

A tremor
nudges the aim sideways.
Pressure.
Pause.
Reset.
A small theatre of persistence
played out between
thumb and forefinger.
Seventeen minutes
of negotiation
with a body
that no longer signs
every agreement.

Until—
suddenly—
the button slips through.
A quiet victory.

The cuff closes.
The shirt behaves.
And there I stand
hands faintly bloodied,
Parkinson’s smirking somewhere
in the wiring—
reminded that even
the smallest battles
can demand
everything.