my hands are canyons with rifts, ridges, cracks
snaking through peninsulas of fat
like land deposits
the truth of time is pressed on every bulge and wrinkle
blue veins, like rivers, criss-cross the barren landscape
of my metacarpals
my palms, burdened with well-worn trails,
are a fortune teller’s dream
there’s poetry in these old hands, in the storm
of skin and bone that’s held a thousand possibilities
and my babies too, and wiped their tears
and cracked my knuckles, my cut-cookie palms
wave goodbye and goodbye and goodbye
I wonder, what’s the last thing my hands will touch?
fingers gnarled, skin withered
the first tools of my chosen trade
I will discard them, eventually
as easily as the rest of me