The Gesture from Issue 50
I was still afraid to touch my father when i thought
he was dying. I only slipped my hand
into his hand that first time before the dangerous
surgery because i couldn’t speak, and his wrist was tied
to the bedrail, in proximity to me. I thought
he held it as if he were grateful I was speaking to him
that way, finally, with my body, or maybe
he pitied my awkwardness, but it was only
five or ten minutes until the nurse came in
to tell me to leave, and he was drugged
and in physical pain I couldn’t imagine with his eyes
moving separately and his throat so full of phlegm
he couldn’t speak, so he couldn’t have known
anything new about me then. Afterward,
when he’d come out all right and lay
in a series of rooms during three months
of convalescence, he reached out his hand
whenever I came in, and waited for me
to take it like a child, or a father
whose relation to his child has not been damaged, like
someone who had suffered and in that way
become vulnerable to tenderness, until
he was stronger, and it was longer necessary.