clare e. potter reading ‘Losing My Grip’
LOSING MY GRIP by clare e. potter
I
Lately I’ve let my hands go weak, I’m not responding
to emails or writing journal entries or finger drying
my hair. My wrist quivers when I drain potatoes,
the ring from New Orleans loosening. I’m afraid
I’ll lose it down the sink.
II
She holds my hand as we walk through the woods to school
chinnering on about something and her hand wants
to gesticulate but I feel the gesture stop in mine.
I wave goodbye at the green light, she’s running,
boxer plaits swinging like windscreen wipers across her back.
On the way home, I go deep in the woods, touch my hand
on a palm of lichen, foot a slippery root;
I grab a holly twig as I slide down the banking
when I’m trying to go up the banking, and there by the river
six black and yellow wing feathers,
I carry them home in a nest of fingers
prop those feathers in the hagstone hole empty on my desk,
now we both can get back to flying,
writing, conducting the sky with our feelings.