Alden Wallace Mackay // Contributor
You always loved to fidget with your hands
grinding a thumb into your palm
turning one over for inspection
searching amongst the newfound lines
as if they were a road map leading you
to a home you haven’t yet found. Hmm.
Perhaps love isn’t the right word to use.
You’re not looking for a presence
but instead taking note of the absences,
and you take no comfort
in what was but is no more—
the silver lining of grief—
choosing instead to dwell on
what never was in the first place.
The hands are not a bad place to start
when in search of one’s mortality but
if I may make a suggestion: You
might have better luck searching
instead on the inside of your eye lids.
