Your Hands And Mine
A 9-part lyric narrative poem in mostly loose 13-syllable ABAB quatrains, punctuated by terse italic weekday refrains that read as a rotating chore-and-ritual checklist. Beginning with a father patrolling “ghosts” with a rifle and the speaker’s childhood nightmares (Freddy’s red glove), it follows how an adult partner’s hands become a private pre-verbal grammar—maneki-cat Yes, pinched-mouth No, pulse-counting, spider-fine touch that loosens an old knot—before the focus widens into the everyday vows of maintenance (pipes, oil, soil) and finally parenthood, where the same gesture is inherited and transformed. The closing image—daughter’s hand into yours into mine—binds fear to care in one continuous line, turning vigilance into steadiness and haunted memory into hard-won tenderness.
Checking for ghosts with his rifle, he paced through the night,
Father stood guard in our hallway, the noises behind.
Morning, his thumbs in the meat of my shoulders pressed tight,
Waking the dreamer, the hunter and healer entwined.
Wednesday, back door: turn the lock.
Thursday, waking: check the clock.
You with an orange rising and falling in orbit,
Palm over palm in the light while I stood by the door.
I could not say why, but my whole body adored it.
Size of your hand. And the arc. I had known it before.
Friday, kitchen: watch it spin.
Saturday, dancing: pull me in.
Freddy’s red glove on the poster above my old bed—
Razors for fingers that sliced through my dreams in the night.
Yours: just the rope of a vein on the arm by my head,
Pulse I could count in the dark till the ghosts took to flight.
Saturday, nightmare: ease my frown.
Sunday, sleeping: hold me down.
Over our tea and bagels, we’d speak without speaking:
Yes was your fist, maneki-cat, beckoning me near;
And No was your hand, a mouth pinched shut; we were keeping
Grammar we’d learned before language that no one could hear.
Monday, breakfast: pour the tea.
Tuesday, nightstand: sign to me.
Spider-fine tracings you walked up my hip in the black,
Dancing their dactyls from pelvis to hollow of thigh.
Click of release—the old knot I had cinched in my back—
Something I’d carried for years. And you stayed for the cry.
Wednesday, massage: find the ache.
Thursday, darkness: let it break.
You with a wrench in the dark, till water quit running,
Forearms like braided rope to moor a ship at the prow.
Listening, your cheek to the pipe, for what was coming.
The everyday grace—it will hold—your everyday vow.
Friday, driveway: check the oil.
Saturday, garden: turn the soil.
When I grew heavy you cupped my belly like water,
Waiting for ripples distinct from the heave of my breath.
The kicks were the first words of a still unmet daughter,
Alien grammar you learned in the dark on my flesh.
Monday, bedside: lift the cup.
Tuesday, hallway: hold me up.
Shaking, you held her—your palm a warm bowl for her skull.
I watched you become my father, steady in his aim.
Her fingers locked onto your thumb. And I knew that pull—
Red glove turned mitten. The gesture is one and the same.
Wednesday, carpet: watch the crawl.
Thursday, playground: break the fall.
Three on the sidewalk: her hand into yours, into mine,
Swinging between us, a fulcrum—her yelling, her spine.
The orange arcs up in my mind. There it goes. The line
Running from that arc to this—her hand to yours to mine.
Thursday, sidewalk: three in line.
Friday, front door: hands in mine.
