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Hands
Paul Willis

”Hold up your hand,” she told him,
standing there in loose pajamas
next to the hearth, the evening fire.

”See, your index finger is longer than the one
two fingers away. That’s the way it should be.
But mine are the opposite, which is weird.

”Now put your hands together—look,
they’re the same size. But mine don’t match.
What do you think that’s about?”

Already his eyes had gone back
to the book still open on his lap.
”Don’t let it keep you up at night,”

he merely said. But she did,
she did, holding up her hands in the dark
until at last she fell into uneven dreams.

—
Paul Willis has published seven poetry collections, the most recent of which is Somewhere to Follow (Slant Books, 2021). Forthcoming this spring from White Violet Press is Losing Streak. Individual poems have appeared in Poetry, Ascent, Christian Century, and the Best American Poetry series. He lives with his wife, Sharon, near the old mission in Santa Barbara, California.

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A Prayer by John Milkereit
For My Father by Melanie Green

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