&bruises.&jackets.andYou.

I stood next the casket the whole day. By next to, I mean more like in front of it. I held his hand because it felt like the thing to do—he always wanted me to hold his hand. Was he scared? Was he lonely? Did he need a familiar touch after shifts of nurses handling his care?

I rubbed his hand gently with my thumb, more like an endearing handshake that held on. My hand was the only warmth to his body, and I held on to that. I soon realized that I had rubbed off all of the makeup. All that was left was a small patch of purple skin. Was it from the IV?

The window in our apartment has a turn handle. Reaching over my bed, I turned it clockwise—open. My hand slipped, and my wrist jabbed into the small cactus I’ve had since freshman year. A small scratch and one bubble of blood surfaced immediately. I watched the blood slowly absorb into a tissue and wiggled my thumb: oddly sore.

The next day, a bruise like a thumbprint surfaced in deep purple. Just from a pin-prick. I thought it was funny for a bruise to form like that and such an unlikely place.

I sat on the bus, rubbing the bruise, in awe of the funny soreness of a little spot. And I remembered holding his hand. And I want the bruise to disappear.

And I want the hand to be his. And I want the hand to be warm with curled fingers and flat nails. I want him to use his pointer and thumb to “MD crawl” across to me so that he can make his best “point” and say, “I poked you!” I want him to pinch his fingers to his thumb and say, “Rrrrrraaah!” in our puppet dinosaur fights. And I want him to declare a thumb war and win.

Though I feel your skin,

it is not longer skin.               Your eyes

do not fill space beneath your eyelids,

and your hand                      does not squeeze mine.

At 10:37 I would not let you go,

but you let go of me,

and I said nothing.

Pickle got a rainjacket to ward of the wet and encourage her to love the rain. As I put it on her, right “arm” first, I couldn’t help but realize the range of motion. Stretching her left “arm” into the jacket, her paw bent, I reached through the sleeve to pull her arm through.

“You won’t hurt me,” he’d say as I tried to pull his arm up to his jacket sleeve, “I’m not going to break.”

The truth is: I am afraid. I am afraid that if I let go, he will disappear. I am afraid that my life will be as if he were never in it.  I am afraid that I will be stuck in the in-between, holding on too much. I am afraid that one day, the little details will be lost, even if they remind me of the sad days. I am afraid that I will never see him again.

God, I am no Nazirite.

I have no strength.                I cut my hair,

and into this desert of cold and snow

I wander without wanting more

than to be lost.

And you observe with

(do you have eyes?)                bones and caterpillars.

You watch, saying nothing.