To the Men Watching Her Do Her Laundry

[Richard]

To the Men Watching Her Do Her Laundry

She doesn't use her hands,
never gets that close,
uses her mind to levitate
her clothes from the laundry
basket to the machine.
 
The quarters stream out
of her pocket into the slot
while she reads the romance novel
floating in front of her.
 
They call her eccentric,
and she is, has developed her own way,
negotiated the sacrifice
of touch.
 
She never attends parties,
or dance clubs, anywhere
she might accidentally
brush against someone and break
her concentration, physically.
 
The skin on her fingers
by now could not take
the brutality of a man's face,
and she knows muscle and blood
are worthless to anyone whose mind
does all the work even before
they cross the room.

[amotwell]

I like it!  Grabs your interest, keeps it, takes you someplace but not too far.   

My only problem with it lies in the lines
"The skin on her fingers
by now could not take
the brutality of a man's face,"

The language here seems imprecise or even "inaccurate" compared to the rest of the poem.  I can see her being unable to tolerate the contrast between her smoothness and the man's rough face but I don't really think the skin would thin?  It's your poem, though, just a thought. 

Or perhaps you could take us there by illustrating her fingerprints fading away first?

Is that the kind of input you were looking for?