As the title indicates, hands are key to the text, symbolizing choice and connecting the student to life, truth, and knowledge. At the beginning of the poem, the student uses a hand to resist the teacher’s directive. Rather than signaling that they can respond to the teacher’s question—to which the student knows the answer—the student refuses. “You don’t raise your hand” repeats in Lines 7 and 11. Instead, the student uses their hand to withdraw from the room: “You raise the top of your desk / and take out an apple” (Lines 8-9). The desk top obscures the teacher from the student’s view, and vice versa. The apple offers knowledge that is unrelated to what the class is studying.

After this, the hand provides a locus of concentration and minute observation for the student desperate to escape their boring lesson. Unlike in typical days, when the student would fidget their hand on the desktop and possibly be reprimanded for it, now, their fingers “aren’t even drumming, but lie / flat and peaceful” (Lines 13-14). The student uses their stillness to stare at the “essential beauty in your fingers” (Line 12). The hand and its digits are a source of immediate knowledge and power—they connect the student to the robin and the tree outside, linking to something greater, more truthful, more important.