phrase "his hand") might be intended to suggest a separation between the hand and the father, and perhaps that even bodily connections cannot prevent such separations).
A second, even more personified, object seems less the hand's equal partner in the surgery that is the hand's main professional and perhaps personnel accomplishment, in the next lines: "the hand that thirteen times" had "led a scalpel in an intricate dance". The large precise number "thirteen" indicates that record-keeping that is celebrated, prideful or even obsessive. The phrase "led a scalpel" resumes the theme of
personified objects, with an added implication that the object's personality is submissive to that of the hand. Thhe word "intricate" confirms the skill involved in surgery, while the word "dance" suggests that the object of this skill is perceived not mainly as a science, but more as an art, and perhaps as a channel of self-expression and social interaction. It seems unlikely that the father has ever directed towards the son enough self-expression or social interaction to be a "dance".
A third, a more personified and less equal, object seems to feel unsatisfied longing for the hand's touch, in the description of a telephone as having "finally sobbed itself to sleep", . This description as a whole seems to be a projection onto the phone of the speaker's own experience of sobbing himself to sleep while waiting for his father. Perhaps both the phone and the speaker have cried out many times to be picked up by
the hand. The reader cannot help but guess that a famous surgeon would have responded more reliably to the frequent cries of the phone than of his son.
The surgeon owning the hand, and the speaker and his own hand, then move to he center of the poem's picture. The surgeon is clearly described as a man whose disciplined workday outlasts the phone's rings, the son's cries, and each of their sobs, because he "still has articles to read". This contrasts starkly with the speaker's first direct self-description as indecisive, undisciplined and frustrated, in the next lines: "[my] hand's indecisions keep me up cursing nightly". The son's evaluation of his own
vocation (and his hand and fingers), as not measuring up to his father's, is shown to go
beyond decisiveness and discipline, in the phrase :"I have watched the other save no one, serve no one, dance with this pencil ". Despite the fact that his own ability to dance with a pencil could be compared favorably with his father's pencil merely "nodding stiffly" (although less favorably with the "intricate" dance of his father's scalpel), the son does not see much comparative value in his "fingers with some style on paper, elsewhere none".
Difference and distance from his father, as much as unfavorable comparisons, are reasons for the son's cursing. His regret at their difference is shown by the lines: "Who would have thought hands so alike…would have no more in common". His further regret at their physical (metaphorical), behavioral and psychological distance is shown by the lines: "I curse tonight, at the other end of the house ".
The father too may have needs, which the son may be able serve, as shown by the son's words to his own hand: "you may have your chance to stitch a life for fingers that have stitched new life for many". This shows that the son retains some resilience and hopefulness. It also shows the son applying a poet's metaphorical skill by recasting the father's "hand" as "fingers", and the father's activities as "stitching a new life", which
the son has more hope of matching than an "intricate dance" with a scalpel. The reader can only speculate that the father's need for a "new life" may result from losing his wife, or the ability to participate in surgery at the level of an "intricate dance", as is common among fathers that have an adult son.
But the son's hopefulness is quickly undercut, and the poem's comparative hierarchies are clarified emphatically. First, the son observes that, even in their common "ability to write", his father's hand moves rapidly, in contrast with the son's own much slower writing movements. Next, the telephone reawakens with a spasm. In stark contrast to the speaker's interrupted thoughts, to which his father had been oblivious, the telephone causes the father to immediately drop his pen. This suggests that the father's pen – which is his only commonality that his son can imagine – is weaker than the telephone, which now determines abruptly that the father will "be out again". In
this light, the telephone's previous "sobbing to sleep" now appears to be entirely a
projection of the son's own sad memories.
The poem has no express stanzas, which gives an impression of words and emotions tumbling out spontaneously without time for logical organization. Throughout the poem the author employs various metaphors and emotive language to depict the barrier between his father and himself and his desire for a close relationship with him.