Game Room Prize

Soft hands used to mean status.
No need to work
fine, delicate skin.

I shook the hand of a man
possibly a boy
with hands soft
doughy
not from lack of work but the
inability to do it.

It made me think of the
tickets, red and perforated (like
the kind you get at the game
rooms playing skee-ball or
shooting hoops).

It made me think of the games
I played to win a stuffed raccoon
(doesn’t even
look real to me)
and how much it seemed to
mean at the time.

Not once did I ever think what
it would be like to have hands
that can’t do anything. I think
that now as I watch the back of the
boy’s (man’s) head while
he nods it to a
country-western song
in the mid-afternoon sun.

LB Sedlacek is an award-winning writer and poet. Her latest poetry book is Unresponsive Sky, published by Purple Unicorn Media. Her latest short stories book is The Renovator & Motor Addiction, published by Alien Buddha Press. She has been nominated for Best of the Net and a Pushcart Prize both in poetry. Her mystery book, The Glass River, was nominated for the Thomas Wolfe memorial prize. She also enjoys swimming and reading.