Hands

I spent an hour watching the way people hold hands
The way palms meet palms
The intricacy of fingers laced around other fingers
Like a fine stitching around some foreign fabric

I spent an hour watching hands
The first was a young couple
I watched the way his hand waited in the air
Hers complacent to her side

I watched as he grabbed hers
Locked it around his fingers like an overprotective father holds on
To the innocence of his daughter and just like the
Overbearing of a father and the
Rebellion of a child, she was resistant

Held his only for a moment then she would let go
She did this at least several times I would watch them
I would laugh in my mind but soon it was not so funny

The way her fingers would drop his after holding them
So quickly, never tightly, never did she hold his back
I could just imagine how much she was holding back
He never got the hint though

He just kept finding her fingers locking them in his grip
It let me know that he was in love, alone
This woman and man let me know that their entire
Relationship could be summed up in
The way she kept letting go of his hands

Soon, there was another set of fingers and thumbs mid twenties
I could tell by the entanglement of nubs
That they were still new in love
Hands dangling in the air
Swaying backwards and forwards like swings, like not a care

Something about the swaying, the way they held each other's
Let me know that it wasn't so serious, but it was getting there
I watched them
I could tell by the lightness in the grasp that if
She wanted to go there, he was just as ready as her hands

Third couple
I could see the possession in his middle finger
I could see the same hands he used to hold hers
Presently maybe had been across her face before

The same fingers that were tied into a knot around hers had
Simultaneously been around her neck
I could see the excuses she made for him in the way she bit her fingernails
It let me know that she grew her patience in other places

I never looked at her face, but I could see the rock in her palm
I could see the ownership in his fist
Because he never never held her hand, he carried her wrist

Third couple wasn't a couple at all
It was one set of hands, her companion was her cell phone
She was not connected to another human at this present moment
She was busy sharing her attachment to an iphone

Texting fingers probably wishing they
Were touching another humans collarbone
There was a young man, a stranger, homeless, a drifter
Fingernails filled with all the dirty
Things people in subways forgot on their seats

Palms crammed with excuses for spare change
Fingers long as the highways I'm sure he's walked on
He tells her that he's heading to Alabama
He doesn't ask for change
She's surprised

He extends his hand
She is as hesitant with her life jacket
As a Christian is to a Jehovah's witness
Finally, she latches on

Her grasp is faint, her grip is weak
Wipes her hand on her black book sack
After he leaves, stains won't show there

The fourth set of hands were my favorite
They were different from the rest
Hands were creased like the ones in his
Pants and were filled with lines like maps
I'm thinking

I'm thinking they show where they've been
He would occasionally lift hers to his mouth
To taste the sweetness of their time together
They walked slow
Their hands did not fidget

Never uncomfortable with the little
Space or the silence that was between them
Held each other with such a closeness
I could not tell where their hands would begin and end
Only to swing them while they walked

They were comfortable with the certainty of their journey
They were in this together
Not letting you slip through my hands
Wrapped around each others triggers
Old in age, twisted in skein and poem and fingers

There was something about the way their hands were as certain
As their steps together
Interwoven like fabric, hands entwined like the material in sweaters
I watched them the longest

I thought that
Thought that I could learn the way to hold on from them
Thought that
That maybe the secret to
Longevity was hidden in the maps in their hands

And that maybe
Just maybe I wouldn't be the girl that
Let go of that stranger's hand so quickly

If I take your hand in mine, would you let go or hold on for sure?
I'm waiting at the bus stop, tell me will it stop for me, or go