A man sits at a bar with a small glass of brandy, but he feels oddly as though he's at home, at his own table. The poem then does something strange: it treats his hands as separate beings. They keep him company, huddling with the drink, and when they hear him crying they reach for each other.
We expect clasped hands to mean prayer, and the speaker rules that out. The hands touch "not to pray but to part." That could mean a kind of release, a letting go, or a brief gesture of comfort before they separate again. The last line, "having had no quiet," hints at why: the hands, like the speaker, haven't found any peace.
The mood is lonely, tender, and tired. Grief is never explained, only shown through small, physical details. The speaker seems so isolated that his own hands become his only company.