Her Hands

The jar opened,

but not like I remembered.

Her hands shook—

not much,

just enough for me to see

she was working at it,

not just doing it.

I took it without thinking.

Twisted it. Easy.

She made a joke about age.

I laughed.

But I was still seeing her hands

frozen around that jar,

the particular strain of them,

the way they'd looked

like they were asking her

if they still knew how to do this.

I'd never thought of her hands

as separate from what they could do.

Hands that opened everything.

Hands that were the point.

Yesterday they were just

hands trying,

and failing

in a small, quiet way.

Now when I think of her,

I think of this:

her palms, smaller than I knew,

and the second where she looked

at what they'd become,

where I looked too,

and we both knew

something had shifted

that no jar could measure.