For My Mom

Mother's Hands

They were the hands that brushed my coarse red mane
And wove the sections into tidy braids while I squirmed.
They fed the cloth into chewing teeth of the sewing machine
To stitch together my favorite Easter dress, blue with tiny peach flowers.
And tucked little pieces of Kleenex behind each hot curler
So it wouldn’t burn my ear.

Those fingers probed my swollen, angry thumb where the splinter had lodged.
Cool hands smoothed back sticky strands of hair from a flushed forehead
And held the straw in lukewarm 7-Up to sip.
Those hands didn’t shake
When they poured the sweet, sticky Triminic into a spoon.
Didn’t shake even when the doctor brought bad news.

Mom’s hands pounded and pressed smooth, elastic dough,
Forming tender bundles into loaves, side by side to rise,
With one small lump left to snuggle in my little pan.
Like magic, those hands could crack an egg and slip the yolk
Back and forth, back and forth, saving the white
For my angel food cake, a doll dress cake, with ribbons of frosting.

Her hands loved the clean of a fresh, straight sheet
With the corners folded and tucked like a tidy envelope.
They rubbed the rag on the mirror until it squeaked like a chick
And probed every ceiling corner with her long, fuzzy duster,
Stalking down the sticky strands of silky spider webs.

Her hands loved the dirt of a fresh tilled patch,
Tucking small green tendrils into damp, dark soil.
She didn’t hate the spider with the long, long legs,
Daddy-long-legs are our friends, she would say with a smile.

Her fingers traced the page in her open-spread Bible,
Held the notebook with its worn, crinkled pages
Where she wrote her prayers for us in soft, curling letters.
She’d press her fingers together when she tried to remember
That one next phrase in the passage on the notecard.

They’d spank us too, those hands of our mother,
With a short wooden spoon from her purse or the dresser.
Or set us on the chair to think until the timer beeped.
But they’d always hug us back and press our head to her shoulder,
And rub in slow circles until the shaking crying slowed.

Those hands were busy from the first song of morning,
Pouring milk on Cheerios and zipping jackets tight.
And they met us in the parking lot on carpool days
On the wide steering wheel of our big station wagon.
Mother’s hands were busy from the first song of morning,
Until they tucked us in like a snug little bug in a rug
And framed our faces for a soft kiss good-night.