To make this gesture, close your hand in a fist so the tip of your thumb pokes out between your index and middle fingers.
European in origin, the fig may represent female genitals, insulting the man at whom the fig is thrust by insinuating he is less than a man, or commenting that a passing woman is sexy or even easy to seduce. The fig can also symbolize virginity, female arousal, a phallic gesture, a worthless object, or the age-old joke: “Look, I’ve stolen your nose.”
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Keli Stafford The 2River View, 9.2 (Winter 2005)
Run
Guided only by cracks in the pavement
she runs,
her body ice-pale, ribs poking
through her skin like wings.
Every step burns her breathless.
The wind rides
her heels and whispers
words to the back of her neck.
She gives up a sigh to the air
and it hisses like raindrops falling
on fire.
She knows now what it is to breathe.
It is all uphill
in the cold, her hair a liquid darkness
like a halo of icicles
as she runs
from a wind that strips skin down
to bone.