Inherited

I'm on the phone with her,

not really listening,

just watching my hands

as they glisten

in the light from the window,

the way they hold the pen,

the exact gesture I know

is hers, and then

I realize these are her hands,

not borrowed, not learned,

but inherited strands

of how she turned

toward the world,

how she makes a fist,

how her fingers curled

into this specific twist.

I've watched her my whole life—

watched how she moves,

how her hands in strife

make their grooves

in everything she touches,

everything she signs,

the way her touch is

these lines.

And now they're mine.

The knuckles match.

The way I design

my grip—a catch

of her in every gesture,

every way I hold

a pen, the gesture

that's hers, uncontrolled.

She's talking about something.

The garden, the neighbor,

I'm not really summing

up what I should labor

to hear. I'm watching

my hands become

her hands, catching

the slow outcome

of years turning into

the woman I watched,

becoming the view

she notched

into me without knowing,

the way she held

everything, flowing

into how I held

this pen, this moment,

this phone call where

I became the monument

of her, right there.

She doesn't know

I'm looking at my hands,

not her. Doesn't know

how the strands

of her are in me,

written in my palms,

in the way I see

the world, in qualms

that are hers, in the

specific angle of my wrist,

in the way I steer

toward the list

of things she does,

becoming her despite

all my refusal,

all my fight

against this future

where I'm her hands

holding a suture

to the past she stands.