These pale little fingers
Are lavishly decorated:
Dried clay soil
Around and under jagged stubby nails
A pink crescent-moon scar
On the third one's second knuckle,
India Ink dried in drips and streaks
Deep whorl prints
Like no others- snowflakes, IDs
And slow to heal,
Painful to the touch,
These omnipresent little slashes,
Paper Cuts.
Mar 16, 2011
Mar 16, 2011 at 10:00 AM UTC
These pale little fingers
Are lavishly decorated:
Dried clay soil
Around and under jagged stubby nails
A pink crescent-moon scar
On the third one's second knuckle,
India Ink dried in drips and streaks
Deep whorl prints
Like no others- snowflakes, IDs
And slow to heal,
Painful to the touch,
These omnipresent little slashes,
Paper Cuts.
Request permission to use this poem