My Mother's Hands

My mother's hands touch my mother's wrinkles in my mother's face.

In my family, the matriarchal lineage is codified in tears.

It is her tired, curtained cheeks that rose through my rebellions-
like a son starts to bald-
which, six years in exile, returned me to a sense of family.

My hands burn under dishwater.
I sleep in late, now, too; I understand.

My mother's hands pick up each cucumber on display,
weighing them against each other, looking for the smallest one.

In California, a cucumber is sixty nine cents by the each.
These are two ninety eight by the pound.

And cream cheese,
and sprouts, for cream cheese cucumber sprout sandwiches

that we used to have,
the white bread sticking to the roofs of our mouths.

I cannot find sprouts.
The bread is wrong, I cry.
My mother's hands, lobster-red and lobster-hard,
put together a sandwich for me
tonight
they

transcend the West coast,
pray

to an icon through which I might connect to what it was I came from,
and still

wipe cheeks before the tears can further erode
our history in my face.