• I recognize your hands
    The way the ridges between
    wrists and fingers
    spread like schoolyard rumors
    Your knuckles are bruised and dirt-stained
    Never ink-stained
    Palms dry and calloused from the
    Dutifully answered call of a
    “real man’s work”
    The only softness to you
    lies between your fingerprints
    Last time I saw you
    you ran them across my jaw bone
    and whispered a somber apology
    in an alien voice