It would be months before I would see it.
Those hands, my mother’s hands,
on the steering wheel of my car as I drove myself to work. 

An unexpected, and maybe unwelcomed, echo
to a morning long past filled with golden sun
and music I didn’t know. 

My brother jumped from counters and chairs
as I lay with my head in her lap,
holding her hands up in front of my face, studying them. 

Small fingers against hers, measuring the differences and
making shadows on the cushions against the light
spilling in from the windows and warming our small room. 

Here, on another day under a colder sun,
I sat again studying the shapes and curves of hands,
marveling in the pain of familiar recognition.