Handwriting Analysis Poem
I like to go back to my handwriting
and add little scoops at the end of words
to the letters s and l and t,
because when I was young,
ten years old perhaps,
I read an article in a women’s magazine
about handwriting analysis.
I learned letters having a tail
meant you were generous
and I wanted to be that.
But I do not naturally give flourish,
my script is first like tent poles,
firmly planted.
I remember that writing small
meant you had good concentration
and using Big capitals at the beginning
of your name suggested you were confident,
but those seemed less important
and harder to rectify after the fact.
I go back with my pen,
the way I go over a conversation
and clean it up,
explain myself in my head,
regret I didn’t listen better, give more praise
and say thank you more.
I remind myself to ask for permission
next time when I come in hot and dump,
treating others like Shark Tank judges or therapists,
assuming everyone is thrilled
to explore my ideas and problems.
It’s vanity and grandiosity
thinking after my death someone
will read my journals or notes
and consider my penmanship.
(I am thinking of that word, pen and man and ship.
Indigo moving through water,
the octopus’s eight muscular arms.
I want penwomanship and penpeopleship too).
It’s perfectionism, and something else,
something about people scratching
with sticks in sand and on clay tablets,
something about ink and quill.
It feels honoring to smooth my m’s,
making sure they have two humps
and the n’s have one
and in cursive the m’s have three
and the n’s have two,
as if I am soothing nervous sheep in a pasture.
It feels important to cross the t’s in the middle
as if they were masts ensuring sail
and to have the dots on the i and j hover closely,
as though they are heads needing bodies.
It feels vital to have the circles on a, b, d, o, p
be complete, like a parent’s arms
wrapped securely around a baby.
And to let the c and e and y be the throat, open.
I make sure the v’s are pointed,
as though geese, flying in chevrons,
depend on them.