by Amanda Beth Peery
She tips her golden watch
up her wrist to wash
the soap's extra speckled
sponged white drops,
left like a sea substance
foaming across rocks
or some mysterious ice,
from her own unshelled, soft
winter-pink wrist. When did
her hands become aquatic,
not impervious to water
and the callous scrub
but welcoming it?
. . .
The thumb's gentle joint
and the sliver-mooned nail-tip
nearly transparent after the pink
layers of the fingernail like rock layers
as Ms Green washes
her hands under the strong faucet.
She cleans each finger, held rigid,
then curling like a larger limb.
Her heart is always in her hands.
They are so much herself but
now also the object of her care
twisting with pleasure
under the heavy caress of water.