It was his hands

Standing by the bedside,
Blue shirt against white sheets.
Just inches from his face
It felt distant somehow -
Here I was to help,
In the form of clean sheets
And instant coffee.
It's hard to know what to talk about,
What comfort could I possibly bring?
My words failed.
Planting unbearable sessions of silence -
I couldn't tell whether he hated this
Or had simply become accustomed to
A solitary life filled with people behind frames
And names written on whiteboards.
He was the one that stood out to me the most,
Failed to become a number in a bay.
And it wasn't his closed eyes,
Wrinkled and wincing with pain
Or his soft melancholy groans
Embedded with sorrow
Which cut across the monotonous
Voice of a small vintage radio.
But it was his hands,
The way they gripped the rails.
Tightly, the way an infant grips
The hands of its mother
Translucent skin wrapping purple veins
Speckled with sun from a distant time
That made me stop and think.
If the eyes are the windows to the soul,
Then the hands, surely, are its reflection.