Remnants

The house now quiet, the family gone.
She looked down into her hands resting on the table top
There lay the  remnants of her life.
The scars and pains of another time
The mark of the cut made on her palm
from the baby food tin when she was thirty.
Her bitten nails torn and ragged.
She smiled at the little pains and pleasure there.

There on the back of her hand a little blood 
from a careless scratch from her youngest's new dog.
The knuckles swollen  and painful.
from the years Splitting fish at the fish plant.
How many fish had she reduced to food?
Was it now the other side of the ledger, the fish seeking pay.

Hints of psoriasis on the backs of her hands 
The worry of  that, all that, all her life. 
The first diagnosis when she was seven.
the pain and shame of it as a girl and woman.
Oh how she used to cover herself.
How she wanted to be beautiful for him.

The black ink stains from her leaky pen 
on her writing fingers.
They told of all the lists that she had made 
of food and household stuff.
 And, she paused, the poems too 
Her poems, how they pour from her, 
and completed her, filled her
with aches and delights.

she smiled gently then at 
the smell of the gentle cream
 that she put on her hands today
after she had washed her 
oldest daughters newest baby.

The rings that marked her love, 
she heard him in another part of the house.  
The engagement ring received
the day she went to his bed.
the wedding ring she saw 
the day they married. 
Should she have worn white.
That day it rained and rained
and she was so happy.
forty years since those raindrops
and that ring had been made

She looked deeply at her hands
and could not see the tears that had fallen there
Tears for her first baby gone
tears for the worry and fears of a good life

He came into the room 
and walking by He touched her.
never a word said as he went on into another room.
She raised her head and watched him
and smiled deeply at his back.
She was happy.

Paddi march 15 Dec 2013.
#6 visual
Sorry its too long but it wanted to be longer than 22 lines. 
so I expect it to be Disqualified but I wrote it for  your  "with these hands"
So, anyway, thank you for the idea, I am pleased with what your prompt produced.

Post Comments

Poetrysoup is an environment of encouragement and growth so only provide specific positive comments that indicate what you appreciate about the poem. Negative comments will result your account being banned.