get down ladies you've got nothing to lose

Sometimes when I look in the mirror there is a woman staring back.

I do not know her face
nor she mine
and so we meet each other's eyes
and then look away.

I have not seen her in photographs;
she is a copycat.

There is nothing of myself that I know in the mirror.
Instead, I have my hands:
pale clasping tree-branch twists of bone and life-lined flesh
that have known hurt and sorrow
that have clapped and shaken, tied knots, torn paper,
that have held pens and knives alike.

My hands keep secrets for me.

They know where my treasures are hidden,
the places I have been.
They have touched the same things I have touched.

I dress them in metal and scars;
they choose freckles, strange wrinkles
and the faintest hint of blue-green vein beneath.
They have no disguises from me, nor I from them.

The woman in the mirror knows only the inside of glass
but my hands have touched the sky.
They shape worlds, and know the texture of the smallest leaf.

My hands know what it is to hope.