Sometimes I hold my own hand,
knowing it is not yours, but
it is the closest that I can come
to holding yours, and I squeeze it.
I know that it’s my own hand
I am squeezing, but I like to believe
that in some strange, miraculous way
we are one body and you can feel
not only the squeeze but the love
that rose up like a river in spring,
the love that is here even when
you are not, the love that then lets
the hand go. It is perhaps, just for me,
this little ritual, and I laugh to think
that perhaps it is as much control
as love, though I like to believe
that somewhere in another room
you look down at your empty hands
and wonder at how they feel
so suddenly warm, so surprisingly full.
I think that’s the smallest heart rock I’ve seen, or is that a filling from your tooth?
Anyway, a good ritual to practice, one that works in a pinch. But no pinches.
Nice switch at the end to imagining how the missing one feels.
The subtlety toward the end, for me, is in the phrase “I like to believe.” All the things we like to believe are what save us from the absences, both the temporary and the permanent. More tough-minded people might sneer, but then there they are, stuck with those tough minds….