Cartography of the Hands: in Touch and Memory

I. The Palimpsest of Palms

You—
yes, you with the rivers etched beneath your wrists—
have you read the script in your hands lately?
The skin holds no ink,
and yet I see stories on the creases,
the half-moon callouses,
a soft rebellion in your knuckle's arc.

I remember your fingers
before I even met you.
They existed
in the dream that predates language,
where bodies spoke in vibration
and silence was a sonata.

My own hands:
a parchment of dust and echo,
the thumbs stiff from too many held breaths,
index fingers—accusers, poets, seekers,
middle fingers—revolutionaries,
ring fingers—sleepless lovers,
pinkies—quiet witnesses.
I raise them to the light
and watch memories flutter out
like birds startled by a prayer.

II. Touch as Testament

When you held your father’s fading fingers,
did time stop?
Or did it gallop forward,
leaving only the warmth behind
like fog on a rearview mirror?
I remember my mother’s hand,
its veins like blue roots,
her thumb tracing circles on my fevered forehead—
a gesture so precise,
I believe she invented comfort.

And when you touched someone—
not out of ritual,
but hunger,
need,
or the sheer audacity of love—
did your palm quiver?
Mine did.
I held her hand once under falling blossoms,
and the petals caught fire.
She didn’t notice.
But I did.
I carry that ember between my fingers still,
and it burns without consuming.

III. The Language Beyond Language

I have spoken in handshakes
that said “trust me,”
and in clenched fists that muttered,
“not yet.”
I’ve waved goodbye like tearing a page
from a book I hadn’t finished.
You,
you touch your face
when you’re anxious—
left cheek first, always—
as though reaching for someone
who only lives in your skin.

Did you know your hand
twitches toward mine
in your sleep?
I watched once,
when silence hovered above us
like a paused breath.
It made a shape,
half-reaching,
half-falling,
as if love still lingered
in your muscle memory.

IV. The Hands of Builders, Lovers, and Ghosts

I’ve seen a mason
smooth cement with the care of a lullaby.
His fingers wore dust like medals.
Each line on his palm
was a cathedral in scaffolding.

Your hands—
do they remember the cup of her spine,
the cliff of his shoulder,
the lost continent of someone you used to dream about?
I bet they do.
Don’t lie.
Hands are terrible liars.
They shake, twitch,
and bloom like secrets.

Mine remember a letter I never sent.
I folded it
twelve times
until the creases wept
and the paper tore
not from force,
but resignation.

You once told me
your grandmother baked bread with her hands,
no measuring cups—only instinct and salt-sweat.
Now when you knead dough,
her ghost guides you.
I swear, that’s not superstition.
It’s lineage.
It’s how blood whispers.

V. Thread Between Fingers

There’s this thread,
invisible,
stronger than logic—
from the edge of my little finger
to yours.

We tug sometimes.
I feel it in the middle of traffic,
or while brushing my teeth.
You probably feel it too
when you water your plants
or misplace your favorite spoon.
(It’s always in the second drawer.)

This thread—it hums.
Softly.
As if it remembers
when we were rain together,
falling on the same streetlamp,
not yet aware
that we were falling.

VI. The Cartographer’s Dilemma

Your palm is a map
I’ve never fully traced.
Sometimes it’s Africa.
Sometimes it’s heartbreak.
Always, it’s moving.
Always, it’s mine
only for a minute.

We are both cartographers.
You trace my scars
like roads to forgotten cities.
I memorize your lifelines
like transit schedules in a foreign tongue.
Neither of us knows where we’re going,
but our fingers have the compass.

And when your hands tremble
in the dim hallway
of someday,
I’ll be there—
not to steady them,
but to tremble too.
Together.

VII. A Final Gesture

So, if this is the last stanza,
let me write it not with keys,
but with the pads of my fingers
pressed to yours.

A gesture.
Not a goodbye.
A transmission.
Like Morse code for the soul.

My hands,
having held books,
tools,
lovers,
grief,
cigarettes,
and your laughter—
they now hold air.

But in that air,
a shape remains—
not absence,
but impression.
You feel it, don’t you?

A handprint on the soft clay of memory.
Not fossilized,
not finished.

Still warm.

Still reaching.

Still waiting
for yours.