I miss your hands
painted nails slamming a car hood down on a highway shoulder
finding brown wood fence to strike as you raise your voice
twisting my hair as you’re lost in thought
But refusing to wipe heartbreak dripping down my face
Calloused, which is why few have held them before
But you don’t believe me when I say
that to the touch
they feel like mother’s hands
Lover’s hands
Writer’s hands
hovering over a masterpiece before tearing it down, casting it among the other things that just happened to break as you held them
You were the type of child that said the vase jumped off of the cabinet you were climbing on
You were the type of child that said “My milk spilled itself”

An attitude that suggested you saw more than it seemed
and thought more than you spoke
because whenever you did speak
your words danced away from the masterpiece of you
dragging all attention to a clumsy, twirling bear
waltzing into a corner
into the cheap bright vegas lights of what everyone expected of you

And when you realized that all I expected was your eyes and your lips
you gave me your eyes
and lent me your lips

I want to depict the creation of Adam
Put myself in his place
But I can’t get God’s hand right,
His nails are painted and hands are calloused
yet soft as your voice
singing love songs to me through your breathing that
skips across my chest
like the cicadas singing to the night sky outside your window
Your hands appear in these crumpled drawings without fail
and I know it’s because I didn’t feel the touch of God until I held your hand,
saw beauty and boundlessness in your words,
heard the tinkling chimes of stars a billion years old through your fingertips on my face

Don’t let yourself think that I cannot see the face of God without you.
As I ask to which star I will owe tonight’s cicada symphonies
I simply miss holding your hands.