And the heartache is passed
on to those who love them
and write their histories on
their hands. Grandmother
wiping her glasses, Uncle
turning the pages of the
prayer book, thumbs, pinkies,
and brittle nails. They stare at
the lines mapping the palms,
the chronologies crisscrossing
from finger to thumb, wrist to
knuckle—roadways to and
from home. Leaving home
etches it more deeply, year by
year, until life is a thicket of
longing. That they hold
calmly.
