Veins and metacarpals lie

like exposed mangrove roots

upon sea-washed sand;

 

blue snakes and white spindles

is a more beautiful image,

but they are not beautiful hands.

 

Like dormant arcade grabbers,

fingers grasp imaginary balls and can’t let go.

Worse, they are the clawed feet of dead finches.

 

Knuckles as big as glass marbles take up the slack.

Skin that can be plucked drapes over bones.

 

Beneath flattened nails as thick as seashells

fingertips rasp across photos,

their ragged prints proof of who’s there.

 

These are the hands of our tomorrow,

hands of saints and murderers,

vagrants and monarchs.

 

They touched at the first hello

and will be touched at the final goodbye.