The carer.
Washing people was part of her job,
every bit of them she bathed,
got to know their intimate parts
even their partners hadn’t seen,
like the hair between their buttocks
and the bits of hard skin
on the heals of their feet.
She would ask about the old scar
that glistened and wobbled
under folds of flesh,
tell them about the wart on their back
they had never seen.
She grumbled at the tangled hair
that unknotted as she combed.
Smiled at tattoos that hid in the undergrowth
with names like Stella and Mary
embellished in a heart.
Most of all, it was the hands
that grabbed her, lifelines
that anchored her to their world,
she wondered where fingers had probed
what tasks they had manipulated.
She saw hidden anxiety in nail bitten stumps.
The callused palms ingrained with work.
Wondered what secrets bony digits held.
And once, when she washed flayed fingers
she felt them curl into a haunted grip
and though facial expressions gave nothing away,
she knew that those hands had done evil.
Sally James
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