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[I washed my hands thousands of times after midnight during my career, in hospitals, on call, but this poem came to me after a very early morning episode as a caregiver at home; the number is a timestamp. An earlier version appeared in the medical journal JAMA, citation below.]
Ron Louie, MD
At this time of night, my hands
know what to do, stubbornly,
poorly pre-programmed
but compelled and automatic still,
with the cold bracing water
and the glop of scented soap
unable to break their rhythm,
movements purposeful and synchronized,
not just the deep creases of the palms
but the six webs between the eight fingers
counting the thumbs separately
each grabbed by the opposing fist
bent with friction and twisted firmly
then sliding each cupped palm
around the flesh beneath the shortest fingers
surprisingly cooler than anywhere else,
gliding across the dorsal latticeworks,
before moving down to surround each wrist
around and around to a vague spot
they both know, halfway to the elbow,
with an unthinking brushing of fingerpads
and thumbs against ten shorn nails
finally plunging it all
under what is thought to be a glistening absolution
believing that traces of the past can be further diminished
the hands now ready to be dry again, ready to go again
no matter what just finished at 03:44.
[this version unpublished; a previous version was published in JAMA 2018;319(24):2561. doi:10.1001/jama.2018.0094]