At first, there is only me,
but then I grab the hand
of the young Mexican boy
who walks his tiny chihuahua
past my house at the same time every day,
and he in turn shyly takes the hand
of the middle-aged Chinese woman
who does the alterations at the dry cleaners,
who quietly holds the hand of the Italian woman,
the dark haired beauty who fixes sandwiches at the deli,
who then squeezes the hand of the
East Indian woman who works at the bank
and wears a gold and opal ring on her wedding finger,
who gently pulls at the hand of the
grey haired black man who owns the gas station downtown,
who once let me buy a Coke anyway,
even though I didn’t have enough change,
who now clutches the hand of the giggling
Filipino woman who sells her rainbow batik jackets
with little gold swallows on the sleeves
every summer at the Farmers’ Market,
and so it goes all day and all night,
until there are hundreds of people
holding hands from one end of town to the other.
We form a wall of love, hands clasped together,
our arms raised towards the sun-
singing, chanting,
This is how it’s done.

Johanna Ely is Benicia’s current poet laureate.

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