Against Hands
Palms damp like
the surface of contemptuous stones
on the steaming riverbank;
fingers ache like hills of burned homelands.
Often scarred;
nails clipped short, cracked and unclean. Thick wrists,
with skin more like that of beasts
bent gently across painful angles
Your two hands—
balanced like a scale, weighing my need
against the glass in my eyes.
as if justice was only a whim.
