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The Aesthetic of Hands
by Lacy D Phillips"If you'd wear garden gloves, dear, you wouldn't get those blisters,"
an elderly neighborlady scolds me over scalding coffee,
her eyebrows peak under folds of wrinkles.
I shrug and my hands hug the mug reflexively,
trying to hide themselves from scrutiny
as if ashamed of their naked ring finger
and un-moisturized, un-manicured state of decay.
She reads my gestures expertly.
I'm sure she's guessed how my apathy
is the bed upon which my self worth sleeps.
She knows the why behind my days spent
planting and pruning and raking in the shade
and that my pride in work-hardened hands
is a perversion of vanity by necessity.
She sees my need to have them noticed
not for their substance only, but for their capacity.
04/15/2005 Posted on 04/15/2005
Copyright © 2025 Lacy D Phillips
| Member Comments on this Poem |
| Posted by Meghan Helmich on 09/15/08 at 02:47 PM lacy, this is beautiful and very poignant. my mom used to garden like that - this reminds me of being little and watching her. hands say so much about a person. |
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