For All the Hail-Fellows-Well-Met - Feb 12 2022

 

For All the Hail-Fellows-Well-Met

Feb 12 2022

Hand shaking.

Not head bobbing

leg twitching

heart racing.

Not essential tremor.

Rather, the formal act

the social nicety.

That you come in peace.

That you are equals,

who do not bow down

or back away.

Right on right

however handed you are.

Extending

grasping

then tracking how tight,

calculating how long

so you're not impolite.

Sweaty palmed

limp wristed

dead fish.

Bad breath

pincer gripped

nails unclipped.

Or going big,

the two-handed man

who pulls you insistently in

for a stiff fraternal hug.

Back slap

nervous laugh

standing too close.

The anti-social act

of waving off the offered hand,

or worse, retracting yours.

Just as I never shake hands.

Too unsanitary,

because who knows where those hands have been.

And too intimate for me

especially with a stranger.

This is hard to negotiate.

So for all the hand-shakers and hail-fellows-well-met

I hope this poem helps explain

my hesitancy

and lack of politesse.

I'll take head nod

fist bump

palm over heart.

Even the blown kiss

or elbow touch.

But please, no hands,

skin-to-skin's too much.

How convenient that Covid has made my eccentricity socially acceptable!

Although that's not the only thing that has brought hand shaking into the zeitgeist. There is also Trump's notoriously competitive hand shaking -- the way he grabs and holds on, squeezes hard (I can only imagine!), and tends to pull close -- which is more of a power move and dominance display than a show of mutual respect and recognition.