The fingers are still hanging open.
Like the screen door.
Like the sentence.
Ready for you to slip
in, close them, finish,
tie up loose ends and
make this have a better ending.

But there is not a word for sorry in your language.
You apologize but it sounds like
tires on wet pavement and
the click of a lock. There are empty places
that loom in your stead–
the parking space, the right side of the bed–
and there are empty drawers and boxes
that teach the weight of loss
is heaviest to carry down the stairs.

I am learning how to live
without fingers that close.
Make the empty bed, make microwave dinners
with straight knuckles,
without having any chance
to hold on.

Moving without you,
I am adrift at sea.

Water falls through
open fingers.

~

Written many Octobers ago: 

It’s an odd habit, but when I’m walking down the street late at night, or early in the morning, or whenever I find myself near water, my hands kind of curl inwards, like a crescent moon, like one half of a laced pair. The other half is missing, but sometimes the weight of gravity or the twist of wind against my exposed palm feels like the weight of someone’s hand pressing into mine. A ghost, solid in absence.

I am a very tactile person, but only when I know for certain the touch will be returned. Otherwise the sting of rejection or surprise or apprehension would be too much for me to bear. I can count the number of persons whose hands I have held on just one hand of mine. It is less of a testament of who is around me and more of a testament to how unsure I am of how they see me.

So I don’t reach for anyone’s hands. Hugs are a rare occurrence, and never as long as they should be. When it comes to poems like this, I have to convince people that I like to be touched, or elsewise they’d never assume it.

October has always been my favorite month, and Halloween has always been my favorite holiday. When I was a freshman in New York, I lived an avenue away from the annual Halloween parade, so I came home from class, dressed up as Zorro in a cheap black mask and hat, breaking out the dollar-store black lipstick I never wear because it’s probably half plastic, and I walked down the middle of the car-less streets alone, faceless and anonymous, to watch the parade alone, surrounded by couples and parties and families. A group of tourists behind me spoke German, so I eavesdropped on their conversation and watched a giant white spider dangle from the top of the public library. I stood at the edge of the street and watched the parade and, at my side, I held my hand open, just in case someone appeared to slip theirs into it.

Lily and Lucas will play with my fingers while we’re picking out frozen meals in the grocery store, or wandering the aisles of the bookstore. There was once a boy who held my hand over the center console of his car and brushed his mouth against my knuckles. Another who held hands funny, so I let go. Now, when Lily and Lucas are in Illinois and that boy and those funny hands are a distant memory, the only contact I have is when I snatch the fingers of friends I pass on the street as we go different directions, trading quick grins as we squeeze fingers and let momentum pull us apart. No hand stays for longer than a second.

So sometimes, when I catch myself with my crescent moon hands, I deliberately iron out my knuckles, splay my fingers wide and long, far enough that they start to tremble. It is impossible to hold onto anyone or anything when you hold your hands like that, but it is a skill I am trying to learn. If only so I don’t notice the emptiness.

Thanks for reading. The squishy bits are hardest to give.

xx,
Meg

Letting it Close can be found in the debut collection Ocean Growing, available on Amazon and Kindle