hands

Isabella Dail

Academy of the Holy Angels Poetry

i smear Vaseline over the little scar on my right hand an unholy blemish, a rippled patch of scales against the lavender lacquer of my manicured nails.

my grandfather’s hands were deformed. callouses and cracks wreathed his fingers as he plucked juice-encrusted mangos from drooping branches. his hands clenched uselessly as he watched his relatives starve, and swung by his sides as he walked across india to find work. The border police beat his hands over & over until they looked like melting candlewax. labor smeared the crevices of his skin with the inkiness of coal.

the little scar on my soft & squishy skin is the fractured piece of a past i don’t remember. i could sprinkle mango juice along its lines to preserve the hardships of my ancestors in the amber of my culture. instead i yank down my shirt sleeve & pray that no one notices the foreign mark on my body.

26