Prints

My fingerprints are blue

Everywhere I go,

and in everything I do,

blue smudges are left behind

All the other women in my family don pink

For years, I wore gloves

to cover and conceal

and pretend to be someone I’m not

My mother insisted it was just a phase,

vehemently quashing gossip and whispers,

which seemed to have a way of haunting me

like ghosts

At night, I lay curled in my bed,

willing her to be right,

wondering why I had to be so different

and what I could do to make the blue go away

And it took many years

For my mother to realize that she had not a daughter,

but a son