Genesis

We awake and wash our hands
in preparation; we trim our beards
or pull back our hair;
we lace up our boots for work.

Like Sundays, we line up
next to each other, row after row.
But on Mondays, it is not our voices
that join to answer a call, but our hands.

Our worn hands are hard, cracked and ugly,
but we hold them open, palms
turned upward, and with them,
we weld raw hardness into life.