The Line

The chimp stretches its arm, a small hand, palm up under my chin, fingers and thumb supple, a pink-pawed sharing. It’s a palmistry offering, if only I had the skill to read it. There is a life-line. It looks a lot like mine if my hand were his. I see a heart-line, it seems open and flowing as if this ape were following another meaning of ‘heart.’ The handler moves on. I check my own palm, note the similarities, even see an indistinct squeezed-in crease, where the heart line should be. A sign, but of what? And why does my hand look like an old map of the moon?