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Wrinkles
by Debbie Cannatella
A grid of little
diamond shapes
lay across the hand
that grips the
steering wheel
before me.
A movement of
a thumb creates
elongated lines
like the folds of
velvet draperies.
Jong says women see wrinkles
as a deep and bitter groove,
a San Andreas fault
awaiting an earthquake.
For me, it’s a road map to follow
which takes me to the front porch
Of a whitewashed house
where my five-year old self
holds the handle
of a Sears dress box
packed full of Barbies
I warn my parents,
“I’m gonna run away!”
One road has me,
not gripping the steering wheel,
but the hands
of my seventeen year old
in the delivery room.
Babies having babies.
New life emerges.
Tiny, tiny hands
Gripping my finger,
not yet wrinkled,
but soon.
My hands are strong hands
with creviced road maps
which lure me to remember.
They are my mom’s hands,
hands I stroked as a child.
And are the hands of my great aunts.
They are my grandmother’s hands
with thinning skin
and aging veins
like waterways traversed
upon mother earth.
They are the hands
of my great-grandmother,
Standing before
the brick ovens of Sicily.
These are my hands
decorated
with a grid of little
Diamond shapes
and elongated lines
like the folds
of velvet draperies.
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