On the Anniversary of Our Death
       

am wondering what to make
of your hands, their thick fingers,

thin, ridged nails unfailingly trimmed,
on the fleshy horizons, moons rising, eight?

—exactly how many, already I cannot remember—
the white-gold ring on your ring finger

as uncomfortably snug as your favorite
dress shirt's top button buttoned.

In my favorite photograph, your large
hands, whose fingers could grip a slip

of a pen—like a stir stick in mine—or type
long notes on the Palm's unfolded keyboard,

hang loose at your sides, cupping the dry air.
With Boyer and Sputnik off Highway 50,

its seemingly endless stretches of straight
road inviting speed, you'd pulled the Shadow

over, just past where the road eased
out of a curve, where Nevada's starkness

was a mirror catching the heart's
unquenchable thirsting for home.

I know the place—what need
for us to name it, then? And yet

at noon, in dark glasses and baseball cap,
you remain after thirty-six years still

a mystery. Your wedding ring, the key
to your Shadow, a five-yen piece

strung on a bead chain I wear
are dog tags, charms to ward off the cold,

cold things once warm in your hands.

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Copyright © 2018 Debra Kang Dean All rights reserved
from Totem: America
Tiger Bark Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission