Hands
R
Her hands emit the hundred-garden floral
face-slap of Vaseline Intensive Care, filling
the Renault Estate. Sniffing, sickly, right to the back
of its family-size boot. I protest, but her hands insist,
keep wringing it in, inhaling all twenty-thousand
pungent petals as she speaks at the speed
of the A12. Her hands sing. The scent-slick smashes
into my headrest, a mother’s firm hand drifting
from the front seat, offering a nosegay
of Trebor Extra Strong Mints.
L
There’s a much later image - deleted, digitally
by a slippery click of my hand. Her hands
convey a Christmas pudding, face shining
but eyes unlit. That instant, the brandy-fumes
exposed the same red as her hair. Only it isn’t
her hair. Afterwards, intoning as slowly as land-
masses shrink or expand, she said the first time
she shed tears was not the obvious, but the loss
of her eyelashes. Her eyebrows. Her nostril hair. The tiny
mammalian tufts warming each digit on every hand.
