Waiting

My hands sit ready, poised over the grey keys, waiting.
I watch them, because I don’t know what to write.
The nails are growing a little too long.
I should trim them later.
I can see the web of veins beneath my skin.
I see a tiny scar on my left hand. Maybe, it has been there forever.
An overlap of scribbled notes is fading into a single grey blur.
The new-found sun partially reveals freckles.
My knuckles are a raw orange from daily abuse, the joints of my fingers ache.
I flex them, then return them to the keys.
A thousand things run through my mind, and none of them I like.
Still, my fingers are waiting, patiently, granted, but waiting.
I sigh as images begin to spin – a boy on a sidewalk, a glass bottle in a trashcan, a dog on a leash. A woman packing her suitcase, two hands clasped, an elderly man watching fish in a tank.
At last, my patient fingers, we may begin.