Your Hands

Your hands like swaying candles,
bent and crooked twigs,
wrinkled finger joints - Chinese writing
rounded squares of nails,
glimmering well trimmed

Oval knuckles - brass buckles,
round and prominent
two wrinkles in your thumb,
worn in,
with the bends in happiness

Paprika to nutmeg - you love spices,
you love cooking,
you need clothes,
you cherish black
but you are like weird music,
bouncing round then changing
key

Your hands are made,
from velvet soft,
from river rapid,
from pepper hot,
from laughing gas:
giggle,bubble
Strife of life

Jemima Hindmarch (aged 11)