- If I were to cover my hands in dirt
- let them endure the filth of years
- Would they rot, wrinkle and peel
- the feeling of ancestors in my palms?
- When I squeeze my fingers, ball them up,
- my fist is less than sore from age
- Arthritis is a thing of television ads
- for they have only seen sixteen springs pass.
- Sure, they have shoveled and written,
- been scratched, cracked, and bitten
- Protected by youth, a choice never made
- pain un-induced, a distant crusade.
