Dirty fingernails

Dirty fingernails

Concerned with appearance

I carefully clean

Beneath all my nails

To nearly pristine.

But half-hour later,

I look with chagrin:

Those squeaky-clean nails

Are dirty again.

So how does this happen?

I haven’t touched soil,

Say, worked in the garden

Or changed the car’s oil.

Wherever the dirt is,

It never will fail

To gather, collected,

Quite under the nail!