Range of Motion

He opened and closed the hand

the way you check if a door

is going to hold.

The technician adjusted the wrist angle—

small rotation, maybe fifteen degrees—

and wrote something down.

The man watched his own fingers

the way you watch a gauge.

Not a miracle. Not a tragedy.

A gauge.

I was there for compression socks.

The fluorescent light made everything

the same temperature of pale.

I kept looking.

He didn't notice, or has been

in enough waiting rooms to know

that people look, feel bad about it,

and look again.

The fingers opened.

The fingers closed.

His face said: adequate.

His face said: this will do

and that's enough to go on.

I've watched people get bad news in waiting rooms.

I know the other kind of face—

the one that's trying to hold something in

and not doing it well.

This wasn't that.

This was a man and a problem

and the problem nearly solved.

I got my socks.

He was still at it when I left.

I sat in my car longer than the errand needed.

I couldn't tell you why.

That's not true.

I could tell you why.