Day 8 of 30

MY MOTHER’S HANDS (clearly, I’m a bit obsessed with hands)

My mother’s hands look like

covers on an unmade bed

each skin canal

carrying years of

cotton and catastrophe

and white crap

from the ass of

Jim Crow

three little girls

in the back of a Buick

leaving South Carolina

is there

Washington, DC

is there

Dr. King’s grave

is there

Black people are born

into the mail room

is there

thirteen years for a

college degree

is there

mothering children

that weren’t hers

is there

divorce

is there

cancer

is there

hard times

hard folks trapped between

hard folds

of hands

that when gripping my cheeks

and yanking me in close

for mother-kiss

should scrape and break

skin and leave me

her son

bloody and raw and sad

but those hands

somehow always feel

soft and warm

like covers on an unmade bed