[p o e t r y]

Fingertips & Knuckles

There is so much beauty in elegance
Elegant fingertips
Caressing a lover's curls
A lover's soft palm
Cradling a newborn babe's
Warm, rosy cheeks

Indeed, there is beauty in elegance

Yet there is also
Beauty in roughness
Rough palms
Calloused from years of labor
Stained by slick car oil
There is beauty in how
The fingertips of a mechanic
Are freckled with scars

Beauty in the rough
Bruised knuckles of a fighter
The way his hands tremor
When he thinks no one is watching
The way the veins snake their way
Down his arms and writhe into his fingertips
The way they
Bulge and pulse to the rhythm
Of his racing heart
As he pounds away on the bag
The way his palms always ache
His fists are always sore
And there seems to be a permanent
Tint of red, purple, or sickly yellow bruises
Speckled across his knuckles

There may be beauty in elegance
But there will always be
Beauty in roughness
As well