Beauty (My Father's Hands)

you say
'i am too bruised for you
i can't survive myself
look at these angry scratches
this swelling place
where would you see beauty
in these fists?'

you know
my father came home every day
with darkly stained hands
from chain oil
and axle grease
smudges on his face
dirt in his eyelashes

he was a mountain of man
to me
his hands never clean
shaggy beard
wild hair
booming laugh
as he roared into the yard
in his one tonne chariot
with two flat tires

everyday he came home
with sawdust in his hair
and huge hands
lugging a chainsaw
at his side
tossing his dirty bucking pants
over the living room chair
much to my mother's displeasure

everyday
he came home
covered in the filth of working men
rode the big machines
once came home with a branch
from a surprised falling tree
embedded in his leg
bleeding all over the seat vinyl
as my mother sped
the hour to the nearest hospital

every day there was sawdust
and blackened hands that never came clean
and splinters
and little scrapes where the sparks jumped back
and burnt his skin
and bruises from flying sticks
when great trees met the ground
at his shivering command

and everyday my father was beautiful to me

if you can not see the beauty of yourself
reflected in mine eyes
then you don't know who I am
and will never see where I came from