If hands are tough and worn as leather cured,
And pads of fingers calloused, tough, and strong,
Why can they cup my cheeks as soft as song?
Never with edge, in them I feel secured.
With petal-soft embrace, her palms assured,
Those hands as kind as hers do little wrong.
Somehow, the grace and grit can blend, belong;
What toils and treasures have these hands endured?

She gets these hands from days exposed to sun,
Their backs a sugar browned from sprawling fields.
Her labor’s fruits, an armor which she won,
Benign with beauty, warmth, a smile she wields.
A single graze of cheek has me undone,
And, blessed, to bliss my heart so gladly yields.