What My Hands Know

By Robin Dawn Hudechek

My hands know the hair on your head
thinned enough to leave strands on your pillow
your shoulder muscles clench like fists,
under my hands when I lift you
from the wheel chair to your bed.

These are the same hands that clasped yours
In moonlit beach walks, or in arm wrestling matches,
the hands that held new carrots, then chopped them into fine pieces
for chicken soup, the last solid food you would eat.

My hands know your sagging jaw lines,
relaxed only in sleep or when I bent to kiss you,
until they were frozen in one panicked moment,
in the dark like a child fearing monsters .
My hands know the dabbing at water on your lips
and so many cloths brought out discreetly, then put away.

My hands know your fingers, cramped around a pen
as you scrawled out messages: Hungry! Where’s my shake?
or when your limbs were bared to the cold,
blankets crumpled at your feet: Cover me.

My hands know the course of your chest hair
rising in sparse mounds like Joshua trees and
dampened most mornings by night terrors
you told no one about. Pressure on the brain,
the doctor said.

My hands know your hands, as they slip from mine
and you turn, head bent toward the window,
then you are walking once more into the morning
on those atrophied legs that once ran in track meets,
and held me on your lap, my head on your chest.

My hands know emptiness.