Your Hands

       to Mom

A stillness in the hands I hate to watch was an untrue line I wrote about the clock’s (a.k.a. yours) decades ago when you’d catch

a bright yolk in its eggshell demitasse, switch it between each half to drain the would-be froth. A stillness in the hands I hate to watch

was even false about the clock; you’d catch each lapse (i.e. Dad’s heart) and make it tick again. Broccoli, star anise whole . . . I study your lists to catch

your hand around the pen, the steady twitch that made this cursive live. If I would strike A stillness in the hands I hate to watch,

replace it with the line you wrote watching your own mother in satin (clock ticking to rocking sobs)—Your hands are still now.—I’d catch

and true my lie. Your hand is still. I’m catching it in mine. Your words are still to my looking. A stillness in your hands I hate to watch remembering the moving I can’t catch.