these hands

I hate my hands.
I have always hated
them. Stubby and round and red, nails chewed
down to the quick.

I was scanning articles today for our Interlibrary Loan office and my
fingers kept showing up, curled around the edges
of journals, looming
ghost-like over clearly defined text.

And I liked them like that, the eeriness of them, their wraith-like insubstantial grace.

When I was little I dreamed of being like that.  Ethereal.  Nearly invisible.  Lurking.  (Well, I maybe have that one down, with this abysmal shyness and tendency to linger in corners at parties.)

But I like the things my hands make these days too much to wish them away, or even wish them much changed.  And that's a nice realization to have come to.