My knuckles are big.
They hurt when I do the mending.
I can’t grow my fingernails long.
They click when I play the piano.
My fingers are swollen.
Sometimes I can’t get my wedding band off.
My hands have reached retirement age.
It’s time for them to stop working.

Her knuckles are massive.
She can hardly tie her own shoes.
She keeps her fingernails short.
That way they won’t cut into her skin.
Her fingers are gnarled.
She wears her wedding band on a chain around her neck.
Her hands have not attained forty-seven years.
She quietly keeps them working.

February 19, 2003
© 2017 Angela Umphers Rueger – All Rights Reserved

The idea came to me while washing the dishes. It was the first time in a long time that I had washed the dishes by hand, the occasion being that I had run out of dishwasher detergent. My wrinkly fingers and swollen knuckles caused me to think of hands all the while I was washing.

Photo taken in Chesapeake, VA, 2014