Hands

I re-apply the plasters,

for them to fall off in the shower

and reveal mistakes and

callouses

I try hard not to aggravate.

I look down to

the dried out,

cracking hands

of a hard worker,

watch them type out intimacies,

produce scrawled handwriting,

attempt to articulate

almost faded thoughts, out in the sun

for too long,

and now losing their vivid colours,

gaining the same pallor as those hands

which I watch engage with the world.

I miss them the most

when they run through your wet hair,

or when the skin cracks and opens up

and what was white becomes

a sore pinkish-red.

I re-apply the plaster,

avoid water like a Mogwai,

and try to hold nothing

til my hands are healed,

the opium of waiting

for something promised

but unseen.

If the blind can be made to see again,

maybe the skin can seal itself, too,

but experience and time

seem to suggest not,

my swollen hands, cut knuckles

and cracked nails

mine to keep, a fact of this life,

seen by these eyes, and — I hope —

by yours, too.