Tattoo

This is how I know you:
five minutes on a public bus.
You gripped the rail beside me;
just a hand beside my hand.


Across the swollen foothills
of your arthritic knuckles,
thin, white, weaving riverbeds
traced the dry terrain.


In faded ink, an anchor
lay within the hammock
slung from thumb to fingers,
its blurry, blue-black outline
softened to a fog.


I would not know your face again,
but I would know your hand –
that worn and weak insignia
so crisply drawn upon my mind.