What They Say about Hands – a draft

They say the hands will do
what the heart has felt.

Not knowing who they are
(might be indigenous wisdom
or merely a good meme from Facebook)
I immediately think of hitting hands,
because I clearly recall anger in fingers 
that had touched too much of life,
the plated skin on their palms, ridged 
at the base of every joint. The way it grows on them 
like moments, thickening tree bark
suiting up for progressively harsher winters. 
These are hands that might have worked hard, 
but in the process, petrified, cracked, 
and when you offer your own in friendship,
you are left with abrasions, impressions of their every day 
of having to fend off ice storms. There was a time 

I might have be attracted to this sort of hand,
until I learned the way they use the callousness they have layered 
on over the years. Hands like these you cannot peel back, 
expose a hint of neon green, thinner skin that makes each of us 
tender enough to grow. And while I'd like to believe these hands 
are for protecting, for planting, that somewhere in the rings of their living, 
the muscle recalls what it was to be sapling or seed. But then, 

I return to my own thick fingers, soft and losing their senses,  
their numb voice at a noisy keyboard as I make another typo 
because dear God in Heaven, I know this neuropathy is spreading,
I am far overdue for an exam, and it is not my job 
to massage anyone with my archaic wisdom or water them with understanding.
I simply cannot use up what's left of my own aging hands, stung,
nerve damaged, clumsy and weakening, albeit very well cared for. 
And let's face it. I've never had a green thumb. Best I stick with poetry. 

-Katherine Gotthardt
Draft 2/8/2024