Employees Must Wash Hands

The horizon is a crude slab of aubergine

crumbling abjectly into the windswept wave-water.

I am blank faced,

emotionless,

on the pebble strewn shore. 

I glance down at hands

that are saliva-wet,

dripping scarlet viscously into the sand. 

The sun tilts, tumbling behind the steady line of the lake.

In the increasing gloom the liquid on my hands

appears ambiguously pallid.

I sink to my knees

and bury my hands up to the wrists.

The beach is coarse, full of large rocks.

The sharper stones bite the backs of my hands,

and grit lodges itself beneath my fingernails.

I am finished.

I have left the last reminder of you in the sand,

in a beach that will be washed into a lake in Michigan. 

My hands are coated with dust and dirt.

My hands are finally clean.