my hands see work-lots of work these days. i like the way my hands look in the summer. they're covered in blisters, cuts, grease embedded deep into the cracks between my fingernails and skin, old scars, and the dark hue that has been cast by the rays of the sun. my hands look like books in the summer, but not written in plain english or a times new roman font. they are canvases covered in small details. each cut on the back of my hand has a different shape, perhaps from working to fast and brushing my hand across a barb on a cool morning, or from bracing against a wrench using the muscles in my shoulder and bicep to loosen a rusty bolt that gives so suddenly that my reflexes cannot harness the power that my arm was holding as it careens my knuckles into a bystanding metal object. each cut on my hand is from a specific incident, which in turn was in a specific place and time, and was part of a whole chore. and each chore was part of a plan that came from my head after instruction from another. And, when i look at my hands and find a cut that i remember, all of these other details subconciously flood my head. other people see cut and calloused hands when they look at the two i have, but i see a story etched in these hands.