My Hands Are Not Red Poem by Lee Gelis

My hands are not red,
But they feel like they are.

My hands are not dirty or immoral,
But I think they are all the time.

My hands have not killed, nor raped,
But sometimes I think they have,
Without me.

Sometimes I wash my hands.
I try and clean them the best I can.
But I still feel the redness on them,
Their dirtiness, the scoundrels.

I don't know what they did.
I don't know how.
But they did something, and it was no fault of mine.

But I am to blame.
My hands are red.

And you may not see it,
But I know you know it's there.