Only a second

I swear I saw you on the train today. It was your hand I noticed. Or what I thought was your hand. I’ve studied your fingernail beds, the perfect ridges, and the little skin you would bite off around them. It was an odd sensation to lean forward, in a strong urge for confirmation, to not see your face match those fingernails. It’s a weird thought knowing someone out there has your hands. And not in some F.R.I.E.N.D.S. Joey kind of way. No, instead in a way that pokes the gap that exists without you. But I guess I’ll take the little reminders — the way someone laughs or watching two young boys happily hold hands or the fingers of a stranger holding the railing — to feel you close to me. Even if only for a second.