should have been
soft
clean
dainty,
should have been
caressed
by a boy my age.
Instead,
my hands worked
twelve hours a day.
Measured and checked,
shell after shell,
after shell.
Precise.
Exact.
My skin
as thin as a whisper
knuckles protruding,
ragged dirty nails.
Hands like a bubbe, not nineteen.
I watched my hands,
holding colored pencils
imagined
drawing the horizon
in vivid color.