I love your hands. I know it's a strange thing to say, but I really do. You were leaning back, drumming your fingers on the stage and I caught myself thinking how perfectly made they were, how every line was so important, so lovely and smooth. Long fingers, and surprisingly graceful in their movements, at odds with the rest of you at times. They are hands I could picture cupping clear water from a pure stream, holding that kind of liquid light in a very natural way. I could picture them parting velvety soil to coax young green sprouts from it, lines and creases made more bold by the clinging love the earth would show you. I could picture them, too, gliding along piano keys, although I know you don't play. I think you could. I think those keys would love your fingertips. They'd sing for you. In the safety of my mind, I sometimes long to hold them, turn them over and learn the valleys of your palms like braille, follow the paths the years have carved in them. Not in a covetous way, but in a soft, gentle way. Those are the thoughts that make me blush, that make me keep my distance.