A recent poem of my own

hard as nails

this spring

my fingernails started to erupt

their growth rate doubled

they also grew hard

brittle

shearing off at mad angles

developing ridges

faults

i kept on walking into things

with my nails

leaving shards everywhere

they seemed to grow lower

wider

and striate

i look at them

and see my mother’s nails

on what are becoming

my mother’s hands

but with my father’s veins

then look at the portrait

just right of me

with my son

and grandchildren

but cannot see their nails