Cold Hands

Maybe it's the wind in Kansas City,
where I'm writing from, maybe October,

anticipating my chilly winter,
maybe the distance that this night finds me

from one who holds them out of love, out of
habit or fear that I will disappear,

slipping away in the darkest passage
of the path, or that gravity will fail

and then one or both of us will be flung
from the world to spin off into space.

But these hands hold on, grow warm as I write
and the blood surges to my fingertips.