Your Hands

Your hands are cold.

But they are soft

Closing

Opening

Folding

Praying

Your hands fit perfectly inside mine like the underside of a boat

We float

Your weaknesses covered up with my fingers

Connected

This union is endless

Sometimes when the world is too loud

When your eyes are too beautiful to look into

When it feels like time is slipping away

I reach out and grab your hand

So I can enjoy saying something without words

Saying I am fragile

Saying I love you

Sometimes I hold onto your hand too tight

It is because I don’t want you to disappear

When time sands down the puzzle pieces of our fingers

When it bedecks our hands with wrinkles

Like someone who stayed in the pool way too long

I will still hold your hand

Still weave my fingers inside yours

Locking them into place

Listening to the echo of the silence

Like the sound of the ocean in a conch shell

Conducted with sound waves

To the rhythm of raindrops and beating hearts

The first time I held your hand

It was wet

My hands sweat like an equatorial noontime

I was nervous as hell

You pretended not to notice

You grazed your long left forefinger on my palm

As if my hand could melt any more from your touch

And best of all there was a second

And a third

I held your hand this morning for the 4,982^nd time

When I hold you tonight

When I stop kissing you to reach for your hand

When my fingers finish their tango with yours

When they slide into their place

In the valleys of your knuckles

When they squeeze you one last time to make sure you're still there

When they open musically, like an accordion for air

When they let you slip away

Hugging the space between your fingers

Letting go

Defying before we sleep

Any thought of not being we

4,983