Posted in Poetry

In your high chair you sit

beside me standing at the sink

watching my hands in and out of the soapy water

When suddenly I am not at the sink looking down

but beside it looking up

up at her hands in water like this

Hands that looked then as mine look now

long and a little bony

with veins that show ropy and blue

And through a sudden shine of tears

I cannot see my hands at all

or you

But only hands

hands that will not hold mine again

hands that won't write my name again

Hands that won't lift her grandchildren as she lifted you only once

then waited for others to place them gently in her lap

then folded together empty forever

Your sweet fat hands my daughter

that look like starfish now

in silhouette against a nightlighted ceiling

Your hands like mine

will grow long and a little bony

will someday show blue ropy veins

And you will wonder peevishly

why your hands must grow to look like mine

as I once wondered why mine must grow like hers

You will not know that they are her hands

long departed

and that her hands caressed you through mine

{Copyright (c) 2005 C. Paden. All rights reserved.}