Sentence:  Adam watched his own hands make the caressing , anxious movement that , when rain falls and nobody comes , and ruin draws close like a cat rubbing against the <WSD>ankles</WSD> , has been the ritual of stall vendors , forever . 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  a gliding joint between the distal ends of the tibia and fibula and the proximal end of the talus