Fingernails Clogged With Dirt

I refuse to take your brotherly hand

Your nails are black with dirt, brother

And your palms are clammy with sweat

I refuse to take the hand you extend in help,

I shall not join hands with you, brother

For unclean hands make me uneasy

For filthy fingernails rob me of my pride

You argue, gesticulating with your once

Impeccably clean and beautiful hands

That before long it shall not matter

For “everyone” is delving and digging

And all shall have hands dripping with dirt

That nobody shall know what clean hands look like

And there shall be comfort in the dirty crowd

And enough to eat, for there are good yields

When the stinking manure is well dug in

With strong and bold hands in time

Are you going blind, brother?

I ask how many have the sludge

Or the strong and bold hands like yours

With which to dig and delve?

Brother, the hands of many are too weak with hunger

And yet for others the sludge is out of reach

And for many the sludge is nauseasting!

But all have eyes and hunger fills them, anger

As they watch your fingernails fill with dirt!

You have seen envious eyes

Watching silently through your chain-link fence

I have seen eyes in deep, sunken sockets

Burning with anger, intently watching you

I have seen perched mouths water with saliva

And heard the rumbling or empty stomachs

As they watched you feed the dogs with meat

From the heavy fields or the city sluge.

Have you entirely forgotten, brother

The fragrance and comfort of clean hands?

The confidence, the peace you have when you know

You’ll leave no ugly smudge upon the sheet?

Don’t you remember the repulsion you had

When you shook hands with fat, dirty men

With their dirty, clammy palms?

Let me alone, brother, and from the top of the cliff

Don’t offer me your dirty hands in help

Let me trudge the long way up

For the short cuts are slippery

Your palms are clammy with sweat or fear

And your fingernails are clogged with dirt.