Sputterpub's Blog

At 16 years I knew a girl whose hands
were soft and still at rest. She seemed serene,
and she became the image I command
when I attempt to wipe my worry clean.
A year ago I started spending days
with baby Sam, whose growing antics fill
my heart, but it’s his resting hands that slay
me daily: tapered fingers, dimpled, still.

My mother ever fidgeted. She found
a thousand jobs to do and picked
her hands incessantly. She harped and frowned
when I sat still like I had some defect.
I lace my hands at rest now, palm to palm
with space between, and feel my edges calm.

The mother was the opposite of calm.
She fidgeted with antsiness and stress,
and never showed her children either palm
except to slap or signal Stop. Unless
the mother slept, her fingers weren’t still.
She picked non-stop – her little girl’s demands
for comfort brushed aside, refused, until
she found a high school friend with quiet hands.

That daughter’s kids are parents now, and all
the babes are miracles. The latest one
has hands that make his grandmother recall
her friend, her frenzied mom. Now she’s begun
to let her hands relax when holding air.
The freight is weightless, and there’s comfort there.