Presence

dedicated to Jodi

How does the hand slip from our hand—
the hand formed in miniature perfection,
inside her mother—the hand her father held,
wrapping his large, warm one
around its colder smallness?
It was cupped as he walked her down the aisle
of a holy place and gave it to a man who waited for it,
holding his breath until the last minute.
And when, this year, it slipped away—
from children, brothers, mother, lover, and father—
it was still there…like the hand once pressed
onto a wet sidewalk of new cement,
a handprint on each heart—
in mud, in stone, in shining,
chiseled diamond, still there,
right now…still here.

-- Katherine Lansing Davis