Her ring moves from hand to hand,
finger to finger,
intertwined lines of silver
weaving their way back and forth across my body. 

There’s a sense of nakedness
without it, 
a double loss,
as though when not on me 
she’s not with me. 

I shed my silver each night
but for her it was a constant companion,
secured along her ring finger in place of a marriage long dissolved. 
The simple gold band that represented
a relationship
so complex. 

My skin is ageing.
Widened knuckles, speckled flesh,
deep folds, lines, wrinkles, life marks. 
These hands that have touched so much, 
held so many,
supported and embraced in so many ways. 

Sometimes
I just have to stretch them out, 
extending my arms,
flexing my fingers,
making contact with the air
and conversation with my being. 

Other times
embedded deep in pockets,
they are unseen, unread,
both hiding and grounding me
in a complicit contradiction. 
Without them I’d be lost.