My Father's Grip

My father had a theory about hands.

A weak grip was a kind of lie, he said—

he drilled me in the kitchen doorway, patient,

until the motion lived below my head,

in muscle. Thumb locked down. Two pumps.

Hold the eye contact, don't look away.

I was eleven. I wanted to get it right.

I practiced on my own for weeks that way.

Friday, a glass lobby, someone new,

and mid-grip I felt it—not my hand

but his, the whole inherited mechanics

of a gesture I'd stopped trying to understand.

The door swung shut behind her.

I looked down at my right hand in the light

and turned it over once, the way you'd check

a tool for damage after use. Not quite

finding what I was looking for.

Not finding nothing, either.