Left-Handed Smudge

My right hand doesn't know

the grace of it, that curve

your fingers make, a slow

dark arc that seems to swerve

against the paper. How

the pencil lead, a gray

soft powder, clings, somehow,

to the heel of your hand, to stay.

A charcoal print, a smudge,

a quiet, inked-in badge

of something not quite true,

but just the way you do.

My page is clean, but yours

has evidence, of wars

with words, that leave a mark.

A small, soft, dusty dark.