sometimes it helps him to think of her hands. the worst things about her: the narcissism, the selfishness, the infidelity, the lying; these are all intangible things. things that although easily brought to mind in the abstract, are difficult to think of in physical terms. sometimes, without meaning to, it happens that he think of her. during these times – usually long stretches of dark dark night – he tries to recall the worst things about her. he tries to recall them so as to oust the thoughts of her tender neck, her large doe eyes, her full lips, her olive breasts, her once-kissed clavicle. but these worst things are empty of tactile reality. sure, he remembers exactly how his stomach turned when he ran into the other, unexpected in the stairway; he also remembers the night of drunken sobs that followed their rupture, but for some reason beyond him he cannot link these physical feelings to their psychic counterparts. in a failure of pavlovian causes and effects, he, unlike the dog, is unable to associate bell with food. on the battlefields of his memory, infidelity et al. are no match for full olive breasts and slurred red wine kisses.

sometimes it helps him to think of her hands. although her hands had nothing to do with their star-crossed romance, they were the only physical part of her whole that he didn’t really like. the nails were always a little too short, and the fingers a little too wide. her hands didn’t match the rest of her body. they lacked the finesse and music that the rest of her exuded, they seemed less the hands of an artist or a musician, than those of a laborer or a peasant. they looked like they should be dirty, although they almost never were. these thoughts of her hands are concrete. they are tangible. he can pick them up, wave them about like a scimitar, brandish them in the dark dark night against pet names and love letters, hip bones and smooth shoulder blades. a beautiful woman’s clumsy looking hands are his only weapon against the marauding juggernaut of this same woman’s charming ghost. memories of a less than perfect grasp are his sling and stone aimed with an unsteady arm against the giant goliath of unrequited love.