Day 975

He looks at his hands.
Hands that are bruised, broken,
fingers fractured, deformed, blood
still streaming down
to his wrists from the latest
beating. Hands
that are shackled,
hands chained for hours
behind his back.
Once these hands
probed gently
into the living organs of children
to locate the wound, the infection,
the tumor. Once
these hands held the hands
of mothers, fathers, anxiously
waiting to learn an outcome,
a diagnosis. Once these hands
were tender and strong,
able to find the place
that needed them, sometimes even
lacking x-rays, scans. Once
they held their own wisdom.
Once they were warm and whole,
were instruments of repair.