My Mother’s Hand

my mom passed far too young
cancer seized her piecemeal for
over ten years—she lost the use
of her right arm and hand from
radiation—apart from her beauty—
the pure exquisiteness of her soft
handwriting matched her face
in the last shadows of her life—
she learned to write with her
left hand—words barely legible
and shaky, like prose penned in
earthly tremors—and when I see
those words, I ache, and my heart—
it sinks—sad in long memories of
her arduous expressions, jagged
in frustrations and pain—not just
for her, but for all our failures—
to cure her—like the millions of
others who tremor in the fogs of
some unknown, unwritten future
whose words might heal us now

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