Point of control
or cruelty, how the line
manager had me
take Dan’s hand, push
Dan’s finger
over the trigger
to make his gun
shoot paint straight.
Dan, a Vietnam
vet, couldn’t hold a cigarette
without trembling,
his T-shirts at the factory
where we worked streaked
pink, stained
at every neck. They had to be
sent back, sorted, burned.
Which is why
the line manager had me
train Dan’s hand, guide
his spray. Each time
we touched, I’d turn my face
away to be polite,
give Dan
some small sense
of privacy. Dan was my
father’s age; my father,
a vet who hadn’t
fought. Dan served
two tours,
he told me, and if
he tried to shy
from this touch,
I never felt it. Our grip
became the work’s
machinery. It was a shock:
my own father
never let me touch him.
How could Dan stand this
coin of sweat and skin shared
between us: my fist
his conduit, a toy gun
for a real one, a college girl
who was someone else’s
daughter? Who knows who
or what my slant face
recalled for him. We didn’t speak
except about movies,
fingering, together, this trigger
my father’s hand
had never pulled. Not once,
he told me, and turned his face
away. How far down
that touch
drilled between us—
I held Dan’s hand
and felt the thick
palm callused, rough. He lasted
less than a month
before the line manager had me
stuff an envelope
with cash, shake
Dan’s hand and walk him
to the door. My own hand I kept
clenched in my pocket
until he left, until I couldn’t
feel it anymore.