I am sifting and sorting frantically,

dissecting the inside

out of the hamper.

I’m not folding. I’m looking for socks to wear

in this bin, I tossed them in with the jasmine-scented rest,

fresh from the washer and dried yesterday –

with blooms of fresh linen, pewter pilling.

 

I find one white mid-rise sock with pink stripes on the cuff and the toe – eccentric but warm. Now to find the other is another thing. I scramble without order, poking around and hoping for luck to deliver me.

 

I hear the door behind my door – it’s the mate from my floor. From the lock and a swift click, I know he must be walking to the common room and I’m scrambling for socks and now a shirt cuter than this — one he might like to see when we coincide. But time is running low and

 

Yes. I am unashamed to say I coordinate my walks to the common room with his –

serendipitous!  But he also “accidentally” knocks on my door instead of my neighbor’s and I ask him for help lighting my candle every once in a while or every night but also he loses his Apple Pencil and asks me to help him find it and he says can you check under the bed and upon moving the mattress where it’s lying perfectly in the corner, we see what’s obvious. We hug. I leave.

 

No, I’m not flirting, just bored.

And the hugs don’t hurt.

 

But they do rush me. To find the missing mid-rise cotton sock that I can pair with the other. My Blundstones are waiting. I toss through and realize that I can wear low-cut socks as long as they’re woolen. Except I find nothing but sweaters and bras and shirts that only resemble the missing white-pink striped sock.

My eye catches the toe of a grey wool sock. Low-cut.

I give up on the white and pink stripes as I search for the other ashen sock.

It’s a cruel game –

I wade through dark Nike sleeves and polyester I like to pretend chiffon and worn heathered sweaters.

Under hues of waning window light

outside, pink clouds stretch arms across cerulean skies.

And inside, I stumble upon the other white & pink striped sock

Oh great. I give up on the wool

and somehow can’t find the other striped — maybe this was the original? — I hear yet another

click of a door behind my door. I can hear the mate from my floor.

The elevator rings,

the automated swish of an opening gate

— the climactic closing.

 

I feel it with my grasping hand, by linens and lulu lemon leggings. My heart is in the bottom of the hamper

by some old high school t-shirt

beating heavily. The rush is gone but the blood still rushing

To my head,

So I whip my hair up

In chaos — a sight in the mirror, my hair

looks good

and I feel sad for who won’t see it.

I give up on the low-rise wool sock because I can’t find its match

What I need to do is pick one and follow through –

Why can’t I follow through?

I spot a black crew length compression sock — not aesthetic. But functional.

So I dump the hamper out onto my carpeted floor and scrounge.

 

In eighth grade, I held a scalpel and hook and slowly removed the furled-up intestines of a frog.

what I remember most is the gentleness

of the metal instrument I wavered back and forth, slowly tugging at the epidermis, peeling it away, layer by layer

I’m not deranged,

but reeking of formaldehyde

I reveled in the slow daggering of subcutaneous fat

with my dull blade

like how I used my fork and knife and fingers to pick apart the drumstick on my plate

or when the doctor points to his resident

to peel back each layer of tissue

before slicing the transverse carpal ligament.

 

The bright blue light exposing open viscera appears to me divine

as it hits the table, squarely, and reflects fractions of light off of shiny metal things.

He uses these shiny things to slice the skin —

his hands in conjunction with his head to reveal the inner hearts of broken hands.

and strangely enough, no blood.

the arm is tied

with a tourniquet.

I am rapidly and aggressively pulled aside by the nurse who asks me if I am okay

and it dawns on me this is the first time I see an opened body.

I liked this: the metacarpals glaring pearl white back at me. Unveiled slowly after the skin, the tendon sheath, and the synovial lining.

I look upon divine work when I stand behind the doctor. He scrapes the end of a chalky protrusion, pinches it, removes it, and places it on a tray. This is the patient’s pain on a plate and he says this is the synovium.

 

God, this man knows every square millimeter of my hands and the hands of all people, from the head, heart and life lines on our palms to the miniscule space between the radius and scaphoid bones he refers to as the radiocarpal joint.

 

And aren’t hands

vessels?

 

To mend hands with hands is a seemingly revelatory construct when there’s an odd number of hands on the operating table. To mend hands with heart – now that’s another story.

 

I find the missing sock. It’s a new pair altogether. I slide on my boots

and reflect upon the ruins of my work.

 

Every time I enter my room or touch a doorknob or pick up a pen or type on my keyboard as I am typing now, I flip open a bottle of antiseptic hand rub and douse my hands. My knuckles weave in and out as my palms, embraced, twirl around in aims –

the topical solution supposedly kills those viral agents

It also leaves my skin cracked and dry

For this routine is somewhere within fifteen and twenty times a day and

especially around food or before a daunting midterm, a crucial interview, as if the % alcohol can wash away worry.

 

Sometimes I find my hand supporting my chin or itching my nose and the physical sensation of dry skin on drier skin turns into a pang of remorse. Fear, not for the flaky drifts of skin but for the possibility –

 

Ping, I get an email. A lucky NEGATIVE. And so, I’ve done my job for the day. My hands are okay, I guess. I’m okay, I guess.

 

Once these hands were love. They traveled freely. And they landed gently. Through my hair, combing through tangles of beach-kissed sun. On his leg in the shadows of the phantasmagoric lights behind the movie. On my shoulder, wrapping me in aural warmth. Once, these hands touched — and not in the context of soap and water. Not anymore. I can no longer trust them. They’re not living. They’re missing socks connected to my radius bones. They’re vessels of possible invisible demons. Of empty promises and high hopes. They’re responsible for too much these days.