Hands are simple to some: pick up, put down,
squeeze, scratch, stitch.
It was how I fell in love with you
the night we met.
I sat opposite you as we talked,
we grinned shy, mischievous grins.
What trouble were we getting into?

Your roommates let us be so it was just
you and me on two chairs, facing
each other and I forget at what point I did this
or at what point I pondered doing this,
but I asked, when you said your hands were dry,
Would you like a hand massage with lotion?

Wouldn’t you know it, now I’ve forgotten
your reaction, but I knew what I was doing.
I knew what magic hands held in their palms.
I pumped cold lotion onto my hands and took
your right one first and squeezed the palm.
I kneaded the face of the hand; if your hand
was a clock, I rubbed three-‘o-clock and nine
the hardest. I wrapped my hand around each
finger and pulled; I pinched the webs.

And as I then switched to
massaging with both hands, I felt part of
my self leaving me.
Your skin soaked up the lotion and my burgeoning
love. I grew nervous that you might sense me
sweating with new ideas, new revelations. My hands
caressed yours and I felt warm all over, flashed
to fever, I wanted to put all of myself into your hands.

I wanted to deliver you, I wanted you
to deliver me. Palm to palm, it was not simple to us.
We squeezed hands. We knew we had
a long way to go
and we cheered, our hands
clapping like two, not four.

02/11/2008

Posted on 02/12/2008
Copyright © 2026 Lisa Marie Brodsky