My Mother’s Hands

i could hear her old car, my mother
crawling up the long driveway between cornfields
a tenth of a mile the wheels grinding
to a stop. a door shuts. heels clicking on the cracked blacktop
i tried
not to look at her face as she
rounded the corner i
sat transfixed eyes glued to the television
commercials interjecting the tired wrinkled
hand i could feel resting on my shoulder
she was coming home, alone, without him
and i did not want to participate in her sorrow.
i could feel her breath,
staggering like a racehorse
trying to draw me into the scene the stone
courthouse where he was tried
the two-year sentence
the bailiff escorting him from her fingernails
her clenching fingernails
now holding his wallet, his tie, his watch
the watch that sits locked away
in a cabinet in my mother’s room
its hands more still than my mother’s hands
resting on my shoulder that day
as a constant reminder
that time stood still.