Picked raw by nervous fingernails,
my mother’s thumbs are scarred
and always bleeding. She has worried
her way through cartons of bandages
and gauze over her three daughters,
her husband. When I was a child,
I believed my mother could quash
Satan himself, like a gnat, under
her great ragged and powerful
thumbs. But now, I grasp her hands
in mine across the kitchen table
as we talk, thinking I am saving
those coarse digits, if only
for a moment. Instead, I merely
delay the inevitable movements,
talismans that keep her family safe.
Women in churches finger rosaries,
whispering prayers, but I
have learned to put my faith
in scabs that nervous hands
will not allow to heal.
Bernadette Geyer lives in Arlington, Virginia, and is the author of the poetry chapbook What Remains (Argonne House Press). Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Hotel Amerika, The Marlboro Review, South Dakota Review and The Midwest Quarterly. She has been a finalist for the Swink Editors' Award for Emerging Writers and for the Ohio State University/The Journal Award in Poetry. Geyer currently serves as Editor-in-Chief for The Word Works, an independent press in the Washington, DC, area.
