Something in her hands

Sometimes,
when I'm driving,
I can see my mother's hands
upon the wheel,
though her fingers were much stubbier than mine.

It's not just the wrinkles,
or the veins and spots --
those signs of age that we've begun to share --
but the way she'd crook her thumb;
something in the tensing of the knuckles
that always gave away
her restless impatience --
to be there,
to be gone,
to be living
some other life,
fulfilling some other purpose --
to be anywhere but here,
driving me.


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