hands and hair

"wear gloves when you wash dishes,"
mom always said,
"so your hands don't look like mine."

whenever i wash my hands without gloves
and run my fingers through my hair
it always feels more dry and brittle
unmanageable like the day they took senior pictures
and my appointment was at the end of the day
because I was cursed with a last name starting with W.

my hands were dry and shriveled from 44 minutes of ceramics class
and i ran my fingers through my once styled, now disastrous hair
knowing these final pictures of my high school self would be terrible
and they were
embarrassment forever sitting in a picture frame
in my parents' home.

my old hair is different now
but these hands still look like mine.