Her nails soft and chewed <br />graphite nestled deeply and <br />ink blotched on fingertips <br />calloused and cut in the battle <br />of delivering words to paper. <br />scar dark and shining deeply where <br />pressed into slender fingers <br />and holding, as if a cup, a pen. <br />and the pen, knowledge, <br />and the knowledge, beauty, <br />and the beauty, pain. <br />the power of mankind woven snugly <br />and sharp lines of words chiseled <br />into open palms, concentrated in fingers, <br />and plied and formed by pencil, <br />scratching deeply their marks on <br />eggshell paper, crisp and sharp, <br />in a poets weathered hands <br />marked by invisible glory <br />dwelling in tired fingerprints<br /><br />Lesley Taylor<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/writers-hands/
