About Hands

it’s funny how they work. It’s easy to label something as tender; fingers warm, slipping through hair, kissing stray lashes. My father told me years ago we see ourselves in the inanimate, breathe life through lips. Feed the illusion willingly. A cycle that makes us human. I get it now, see the morning chew through stars. Gaps in fingerprints opened like eyes. The shape of a mother; cascading hair, cradling a clumped towel, wrinkled-forehead. I waited for the train but didn’t know I was waiting for something else. Didn’t know that my heart lodged— stuttered in my throat because there were hands behind me. Didn’t know how little it took for bone to tumble, crash. How easy it was to become smothered by another, again.