The focus of the encounter had been the hands, the nail beds, the individual fingers, the veins on the top, the lines in the palms, the knuckles, the hangnails, the tissue and ligaments of the hand. I rode his hands and I forced them out, into my mouth and out of my belly button. I ate his hands, I wrapped them around my clavicle and around my right hip. The thighs enveloping the hands. His fingers were wrapped around my toes, on my shin, and inside my meniscus.

People believe the lips to be essential, and they are, but it’s the hands that know everything and find everything and are most capable. The hands are braver or looser. The fact that his right hand became broken was an accident; things had gotten away from us. So it was only one hand that continued its pursuit; we were left with one hand. And this lone extremity did its job. It scratched, it began, it climbed, it unfastened.

The broken hand was done, limp, but the other was tickling. It was moving around the scalp, massaging and tapping. It was under the breasts and right around the nipple. It lifted the nipples out of the way, it moved the membrane and it entered simultaneously, it caressed. The hand dipped, it curved, and sometimes it retreated.

My lip liner was smudged on the working hand, and the broken hand was clean. The active hand pulled on my piercings. The hand was glistening, flicking. It was soft, or it pushed in a soft way, it spun. It peeled off my false lashes one at a time; it touched the bridge of my nose. The other hand was limp, but this one went back to my hips, it supported my hips. It waded in my material. It ruffled the solid and held it in its grasp, and the hair on the nape of the neck, which was cut short enough and neat.

The hand brought the eyes along with it, the eyes, imagine it. Wherever the eyes went the hands went too. With the eyes it pointed and held on, it decided something. With the eyes it didn’t play. It spun. With the eyes the hand hesitated.

The hand, it also let the eyes rest, the eyes were closed and the mouth was opened. Wide, the hand was using two fingers, three, and the other hand was broken. It sometimes grabbed my own hand and brought them both together to the stomach. It felt like snow. In the cognizant hand, the viable hand, a spliff appeared and the smoke rose up. The rings on the hand fell off and a cherry Blow Pop appeared between the thumb and the index. The hand helped to distribute the gum in its center.