Indentured — Summary

I break in pieces to make friends or money

but who would take my hands before they were wed to a different use

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The speaker describes a kind of self-division that work demands. To make friends or earn money, they say, they have to "break in pieces," as if being sociable or employable means handing out bits of yourself. The title, "Indentured," sharpens this: an indentured person is bound by contract to labor for someone else, so the poem hints that the speaker feels owned, or at least committed, before they ever had a choice.

The second stanza turns into a question, and it sounds wistful. Who would want the speaker's hands as they were before being "wed to a different use"? The marriage image suggests the hands have already been pledged to work, and perhaps to routine. The speaker seems to wonder whether any untouched, unclaimed version of themselves is left to offer. The mood is quiet, tired, and a little lonely, with a dry edge of irony. Its short lines feel like the pieces it describes: small, clipped, and slightly cut off from one another.

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