When you look at my hands I want you
To wonder where they have been
To look beyond the age spots and wrinkles
To notice the scars as the scars of a life
To know that these hands have been lived in.
They’re a voice from earlier decades
Whispering
Vibrating
Reverberating
A recording etched in the grooves of my skin
While the whorls of my fingerprints, there from my birth
Are overwritten and smoothed as they move towards death.