after Genealogy by Betsy Sholl
One of her hands was a rake, the other a trowel.
One scraped mindlessly against the sidewalk, the other dug holes in the sky.
When she woke in the middle of the night, she would count her fingers
like the blessings she too often forgot to remember.
One hand knew what the other was doing,
the other did it anyway.
One of her hands held on like a tick on soft flesh. The other let go
like a fly on a windowpane in the second before the swatter lands.
One hand tapped restlessly on the tabletop,
the other used sign language to spell peace.
One hand held a teacup to the lips of an ailing mother. The other
splashed in a trough of dreams.
One was a flower, the other a weed. She didn’t care
which was which as long as they were firmly rooted.
Together, they could do what neither could do alone
when she clasped them silently in prayer.
