KATE AUSTIN
I’m wearing my
mother’s skin
and since I’ve passed my
best-before date,
her hands fit as if they were
made
for me
Personally crafted
by a tailor from
Hong Kong
one who sends out
full colour postcards
promising
the perfect fit
I remember
her hands, mine now
trembling as she
smoked
drank
her morning beer
from the sunshine
yellow of her plastic cup
I use it, she’d say
because it doesn’t break
when I drop it.
That yellow cup
Holds a faded paper crane
a tarnished bracelet
a bookmark
I lift it to my nostrils
and believe I still
smell her in it
I’m wearing my
mother’s nails
her fingers
her rings almost fit
so I push them
onto my middle finger
too tight but safe
the gold and
treasured diamonds
shine
as she did
Her hands, now mine
tobacco stained and worn
with time and pain and
for me at last
with joy
I read between the lines
of my hands
mining the veins
for answers
I map the marks
on my hands
pale ones, dark ones
to find a path to
my mother
myself