Hands
I can see the grief in them--
the scars, of course, stand out
skin flayed by knives and glass and bites
and the blisters big as half dollars
ripped from the calluses by the high bar
and the shovels and axes and hammers
shaping the earth,
but the earth always wins
I can see the wars in them
Vietnam and Iran and Nicaragua and Bangladesh.
I can see the years of poverty
the inability to get published.
I can see Flo's cancer
and my blackouts
and all the creditors
and promises lost.
I can see the victories in them
small
and mixed with little scars.
The nails have turned to ridges,
each one a plowed field
waiting for a harvest that will never come.
They were never strong, but my hands are.
They are big and they are kind.
I guess they could be described as capable hands.
They have made so many things.
I used them to shape wood and books
to sculpture a poem and print a picture.
They have done their share of plumbing
and automobile mechanics, eletrical wiring
and, yes, squeezing triggers.
They are coarse hands, but they are gentle.
They are magic for cat's ears
and dog's rumps and tickling children.
They are healers too.
They can rub the pain away
the fear
and the tears.
They can make love.
I saw them change early in the spring.
I thought it was darkroom chemicals,
the gasoline and the lacquer thinner.
I saw the skin go leather
textured and knobby
with rivers of wrinkles and lines
and five years of hard living.
I rubbed them with enough grease to pack an axle.
Not a single hand cream worked as advertised.
I changed detergents.
Nothing helped.
Driving into L.A. on the Harbor Freeway
my hands were caught in that fierce
morning sun
and they were old.
These days
when they have nothing to do
they are hiding in my pockets
or laying in the shade.
Still,
they are big and clumsy and friendly.
The kind of hands that brush away tears.
Author: Michael Andrews
