This Can’t Possibly Be My Hand

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This can’t possibly be my hand.

My hand is the tiny one

That tried to weave the infinity of moonlight

from the launching pad of a white wicker cradle

My hand is the toddler one

That was gripped by a grown-up’s bigger one

As we darted across

The vast, black tar prairie of Jamaica Avenue

In the middle of a car stampede.

My hand is the kindergarten one

that hand cranked a toy ukulele as if I only had minutes to live

Gave life to puppets

Clicked Bic pens like they were mini castanets

Twirled the TV channel knob like a safecracker

And tried to pin the tail on the donkey who had  
suffered the tragic loss of his own

My hand is the adolescent one

That longed to touch the warm muffin breast of a willing girl

Who would dance with me

In the shadows of a school dance

As my middle school manhood trembled and throbbed

Like the front row of an Elvis concert.

My hand is the one

That conducted my twenties,

full of young man’s blues and dreams

that slipped through my fingers

almost by the hour.

My hand is the married one

That twirled my forever barefoot bride

who became a stranger in just a matter of years.

My hand is the daddy one

That rocked and burped,

chauffeured like a Teamster

and wrapped Christmas presents

like it was a covert op for the CIA.

And now

My hand is the grandpa one

The one that strokes my grandson’s bounty of curls

And soothes him until all is lost in the great battle of

I will not take a nap.

As he sleeps

Like some dame slipped knock-out drops into his sippy cup

Despite this outsized feeling of grandpa victory

I find myself staring at this hand of mine

That I do not recognize

With its shortened lifeline

wrinkled as a Shar-Pei

or an unmade bed

And I can’t help but wonder

When the end finally comes,

Who will take it?

Who will want to hold it?

Who will never want to let it go?

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