A Working Man
April 27 2024
Yes, laugh lines, more deeply inscribed,
the crinkles around my eyes
when I smile
that have now become permanent.
But what most betrays my age
is the fleshiness;
how over the years
and inexplicably
my face has fattened and sagged.
Yet at the same time
muscle atrophies
and hands waste.
How, in old people
you can see the bones
beneath thinly stretched skin.
How the wattled necks and skinny hands
are dead giveaways.
But the farmer’s strong hands
— big as mitts,
with sausage fingers
and warm calloused skin —
are still formidable;
a working man’s hands,
a lifetime
of manual labour.
Did work do this?
Or did he self-select;
how a man’s man
forks hay and builds fences
and manhandles farm animals
instead of writing poetry?
My hand disappears into his;
a damp spindly fish
in a massive jaw.
He clamps down hard
in a crushing grip;
not an assertion of dominance
by an insecure man,
but simply someone
who doesn’t know his own strength.
I avoid shaking hands
and envy men like this.
If only life
went the other way around.
That I had a taut face, liked sculpted marble,
along with thick farmer's hands
that can toss a bail of hay
and never betray their age
or shy away from touch.
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