My hands, smaller than my father’s – still my father’s – sit weary in a warm lap. Toiled over pen and pricked lightly with the arrow tip of mourning, they wring themselves out to dry. Will we ever rest? Will these hands ever find themselves soft? Will the lines of our palms ever stop reading a threat? We are a diligent disgrace: the prodigal sun returns to forge wither or wilt, a subtle and useful reproach. These hands, bruised rage calmed in disparate calamity, carry us both.