She started by just looking at them,

all those perfect hands, attached
to the wrists of so many strangers.
She rode public buses on long afternoons,

coveting the delicate bones, the fleshy
webbing that lurked between each finger,
the blue sluice of veins. The white

half-moons tipping each fingernail reminded
her of pristine whitesanded beaches, of
beautiful bronze people cast into the sun.

Now she wants to touch them, all of them,

feel the humid torpor of an infant,
or the moth-wing featherings of age
and fatigue. She crouches in the sticky

bus seat, wedges her own hands under
her thighs, tries not to reach out and grab,
take without asking. Her own hands seem

pockmarked, stained with ink, awful claws
that hook and will not let go. She dreams
of never wearing gloves or needing pockets.

Now she dreams of having those hands.