To My Too-soft Fingertips #11/30

She tells me you are tender

Uncracked and sensitive even in the dryness of winter

You know it is because you don’t do the dishes as often as you think

You give away my secrets

drumming on the steering wheel while we don’t talk on the long car ride home

picking at the dry skin

and finding the stubble I missed

Some would say you are

the way you are

because you don’t know how to play the guitar

because work has never been hard for you

Pink ridges, the blisters you haven’t had

The papers you can’t peel apart

without a lick