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# The Hug
- URL: https://poetry101.love/the-hug/
- Published: 2020-10-01T17:31:00.000Z
- Updated: 2020-12-10T18:37:15.000Z
- Description: by Tess Gallagher
- Author: Melissa Anderson
- Tags: Tess Gallagher, #Import 2026-11-04 19:11

A woman is reading a poem on the street  
and another woman stops to listen. We stop too.  
with our arms around each other.

Suddenly a hug comes over me and I’m  
giving it to you, like a variable star shooting light  
off to make itself comfortable, then  
subsiding. I finish but keep on holding  
you. A man walks up to us and we know he hasn’t  
come out of nowhere, but if he could, he  
would have. He looks homeless because of how  
he needs. “Can I have one of those?” he asks you,  
and I feel you nod. I’m surprised,  
surprised you don’t tell him how  
it is – that I’m yours, only  
yours, etc., exclusive as a nose to  
its face. Love – that’s what we’re talking about, love  
that nabs you with “for me  
only” and holds on.

So I walk over to him and put my  
arms around him and try to  
hug him like I mean it. He’s got an overcoat on  
so thick I can’t feel  
him past it. I’m starting the hug  
and thinking, “How big a hug is this supposed to be?  
How long shall I hold this hug?” Already  
we could be eternal, his arms falling over my  
shoulders, my hands not  
meeting behind his back, he is so big!

I put my head into his chest and snuggle  
in. I lean into him. I lean my blood and my wishes  
into him. He stands for it. This is his  
and he’s starting to give it back so well I know he’s  
getting it. This hug. So truly, so tenderly  
we stop having arms and I don’t know if  
my lover has walked away or what, or  
whether the woman is still reading the poem…

Clearly, a little permission is a dangerous thing.  
But when you hug someone you want it  
to be a masterpiece of connection, the way the button  
on his coat will leave the imprint of  
a planet in my cheek  
when I walk away. When I try to find some place  
to go back to.

Skinner, Jeffrey, and Gallagher, Tess. [Amplitude: new and selected poems](https://www.google.com/books/edition/Amplitude/Y6daAAAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0&kptab=getbook&ref=poetry101.love). Saint Paul, Graywolf Press, 1987.