How to Write a Handprint: Ars Poetica
Lila Hayes | Young Writers Issue | Poetry, Winter 2025
Envy the baby crying in the stroller who doesn’t know
she has to mean anything at all.
Breathe in, feel it enter your lungs,
feel the oxygen that could’ve been used
by millions before you, that Ötzi
could’ve taken his last breaths with. He couldn’t
have had any idea what he would mean
after he was found, or that he would ever be lost.
Paint the creases of your hand with red ocher;
make sure it gets under every nail
so you don’t forget. Stamp it on everything you can:
the plexiglass bus stop, the windows of the Empire
State Building, the president’s bedroom wall.
Put your left hand flat on the paper and your right hand
on your chest. Make sure you have enough pigment
for this to be your Cueva de las Manos. Reach your hand
into your chest and lay everything you pull out
level on the page. The same red that came from inside you
spread as a chilled flush on Ötzi’s face
as he climbed the ice, his hands warm
against the snow he’d be buried in.
Set your print in a dry cave with blank walls.
Trace the edges of it in the sand. It seems small,
a plea of red resting in a world bigger than you
can comprehend, but it’s all you’ve got. Put one foot
in front of the other. Roll a boulder over the entrance
like a prayer, with trust someone will move it again,
though you’ll never see it happen. This is how to push yourself
into something adjacent to immortality, something pinprick-small.
________________________________________________________________________
Why is this piece your Trace Fossil?
“This piece is my Trace Fossil because it is an echo of life. At its heart, it is about the need to be remembered and the ways we use art to fulfill that need. We don’t know everyone who lived before us, but there is a current between us and them that is formed by art. Those creations carry the essence of their creator with them and deliver it to us. When we write, we take our own soul and press it into our work, because long after we are gone, that is what could remain.”
Lila Hayes (age 14) is a creative writing student and Scholastic Writing Awards winner living in South Carolina. When she isn't writing, she can be seen talking to her cat and reading.
How to Write a Handprint: Ars Poetica
Lila Hayes Young Writers Issue | Poetry, Winter 2025
Envy the baby crying in the stroller who doesn’t know
she has to mean anything at all.
Breathe in, feel it enter your lungs,
feel the oxygen that could’ve been used
by millions before you, that Ötzi
could’ve taken his last breaths with. He couldn’t
have had any idea what he would mean
after he was found, or that he would ever be lost.
Paint the creases of your hand with red ocher;
make sure it gets under every nail
so you don’t forget. Stamp it on everything you can:
the plexiglass bus stop, the windows of the Empire
State Building, the president’s bedroom wall.
Put your left hand flat on the paper and your right hand
on your chest. Make sure you have enough pigment
for this to be your Cueva de las Manos. Reach your hand
into your chest and lay everything you pull out
level on the page. The same red that came from inside you
spread as a chilled flush on Ötzi’s face
as he climbed the ice, his hands warm
against the snow he’d be buried in.
Set your print in a dry cave with blank walls.
Trace the edges of it in the sand. It seems small,
a plea of red resting in a world bigger than you
can comprehend, but it’s all you’ve got. Put one foot
in front of the other. Roll a boulder over the entrance
like a prayer, with trust someone will move it again,
though you’ll never see it happen. This is how to push yourself
into something adjacent to immortality, something pinprick-small.
______________________________________
Why is this piece your Trace Fossil?
“This piece is my Trace Fossil because it is an echo of life. At its heart, it is about the need to be remembered and the ways we use art to fulfill that need. We don’t know everyone who lived before us, but there is a current between us and them that is formed by art. Those creations carry the essence of their creator with them and deliver it to us. When we write, we take our own soul and press it into our work, because long after we are gone, that is what could remain.”
Lila Hayes (age 14) is a creative writing student and Scholastic Writing Awards winner living in South Carolina. When she isn't writing, she can be seen talking to her cat and reading.
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