“I have my father’s hands. How unromantic.” poetry & other musings

Thoughts on ruggedness & inheritance

He is across from me at a speakeasy in Austin, Texas where “You Got Me” by Erykah Badu& The Roots floats out of the speakers and over the velvet booths. A collective mmmmmm is shared between the four total black folks in this den, as we all take a moment to appreciate the selection. Conversation resumes lightly between the two of us, who met the night before at an industry event. “I can not let you leave my city before I take you out. I need to know who you are.” Hmm. So, out we go.

We are on our second round of drinks when I note his desire for touch, he’s shifted in his seat so that his knee is closer to mine. I pretend not to notice. He smells like Gucci and warm leather. And those are things I love but I do not relent. I smile at being crowded but do not signal for more. In a final attempt to connect, he grazes his hand over the yolk yellow sleeve of my dress and runs his fingers down to my relaxed right hand. The length of my nails and stacks of rings have drawn his eye all night, he admits before I finally flip my hand over and expose my palms. He can’t help but want to touch a thing that looks so warm, he nearly begs, “it’s the Taurus” in him. What a lazy ask. When I go to put my hand back in my lap, I ready myself for his observation.

“You have such interesting hands,” he says. 

“Thanks, they’re my father’s.”

Craftsman’s hands. Carpenter’s hands. 

Deeply fingerprinted and palmprinted with ridges deep like papyrus scroll. Like rough linen. 

The sort of palms that seem ancient and knowing. And strong. Not soft at all. Palms like work. Like working.

The kind of skin you’d think was dry on purpose if my skincare wasn’t so meticulous. 

No matter how much petroleum or shea I put on them, they do not soften. Won’t soften. Only moisturize.

They just. Work. Point. Grasp. Create. Hold. These days, write.

But still, I make delicate work of them. 

Doing heavy things, lightly. 

These hands are my father’s and his father’s too. Before that, I am not sure… whose craft I’m carrying at the outermost ends of me.

I’d like to think they left small secrets in the deep folds of my knuckles. 

Mantras about work but not ease. About problem solving. But not feeling.

Little to-do lists read like love notes from the Futch men for their last daughter. 

A list of action items. it’s likely the only inheritance I’ll receive from them.

Is this why all my love has felt such like labor?

So to love me lazily. Will not do.