Salty hands
Her hands were salty – and none could say
if it was more salt because of the sweat
or because of the tears.
Her hands were salty and they miraculously shined
next to the loafs of rye bread –
just some other slices of the grayness
of her life.
Her hands were salty and they shined
more than the sheets (now of an ambiguous shade)
in which her children slept.
She had ceased to strive to whiten those sheets
ever since she had realized that
the whiter were the sheets
the blacker seemed her children’s skin.
Her hands were salty and smelled like prayers –
prayers for health and for food
and for all the necessary small things.
But above all
for a colourless world.
© Liliana Negoi, 2017
Endless Journey 