Twenty-seven bones make up the human hand. Lunate and capitate and navicular, scaphoid and triquetrum, the tiny horn-shaped pisiforms of the outer wrist. Though differing in shape and density each is smoothly aligned and flush-fitted, lashed by a meshwork of ligatures running under the skin. All vertebrates share a similar set of bones, and all bones grow out of the same tissue: a bird's wing, a whale's dorsal fin, a gecko's pad, your own hand. Some primates got more—gorilla's got thirty-two, five in each thumb. Humans, twenty-seven.

From Rust and Bone by Craig Davidson ©2006. Published by Penguin Canada.