"Imprint" by Justine Payton

Hold tight. Let go. Paper cuts. Finger pricks. Knuckles jam. Bones smash. Muddy nails. Palms on an oak burl. Dandelion yellow. White snow on red skin. Scar from a pocket knife. French manicures. Lavender soap. Fingers dipped in cake batter.

Your fingers untangling my hair. The intimacy of our hands interlaced. 

I remember when your hand engulfed mine. It was aged with lines and wrinkles, covered in skin that I could pull into little teepees before watching it retract back over your bones. 

My hand was soft and small in comparison.

You traced the life lines on my palm and predicted joy; caressed each finger lovingly as a half part of your own creation. 

You brought my palm to your lips to brush a kiss across the center, curled my hand beneath yours to seal it in. 

You spoke the words I knew by heart, having heard them from you so many times before: “I will always love you, my Justine Rose.”

I could feel your voice echo internally, the deep burrowing of a mother’s love.

Then years passed. 

My hands slick with fear. My fists clenched. Nails scratch on my naked body. I tried to push away, push away, push away. 

Did you see this on my palm? Did you know that I would fail to push him away?

In darkness, I hold myself together with my own two hands. I wrap my arms tightly around my body.

I am grown now. 

My hand is bigger than yours.

I can pull my skin and watch it transform into little teepees. 

I trace the lines that zigzag across my palm, but they lend themselves to a different interpretation. 

And I wonder how you missed the deep grooves of pain, the trials and devastations that would come.

I wonder if, when your fingers traced those paths, you thought you could protect me from it all.

In the forests of my childhood, I catch ripples in the river and watch as sunlight dances across its surface.

My hand curls to bring you near, deep into the sanctuary you helped build for the times I would become lost in life’s dark and empty spaces.  

You, who with each kiss imprinted a reminder. 

You, whose voice I can always hear  —  “I will always love you, my Justine Rose.”

It is you whose love is engraved on my hands. 

It is your hope etched along these birth-given lines.

Justine Payton is an MFA candidate at the University of North Carolina-Wilmington, as well as managing editor of the litmag ONLY POEMS. She has been published in the Wild Roof Journal, HerStry, The Corvus Review, The Masters Review and The Keeping Room. An avid hiker and ecofeminist, her writing most often focuses on the themes of resilience and finding wonder in the small things.