Fingers on silk scarf

The skin on my fingers catches against the silk--rough skin, hangnails, dry fingerpads--hands worn with work.

The little red hen ground the grain, made the dough, baked the bread. The fruits of her labor fed her chicks. The goose, the cat and the rat stood by as they ate and felt their bellies rumble.

My hands are more and more like my mother's with each passing day. A surprise to me--to recognize her there. The pattern of her veins, her red knuckles, the skin with hatchmarks like they've been drawn in rough pen and ink. These are mine now. Passed down without ceremony. Received with prayer that they will know better when to hold tight and when to let go.

I still recall a warm summer day when I was only thirteen. I stood at the washtub in the cool, moist basement, sorting laundry. I asked my mother I should use bleach on the whites. She said yes, but never get it on your hands. She regretted the damage it had done to hers. It made her look old, she said.

But she was old. At least that's what I thought then. But she was not much older than I am now. She was young and looking at her own hands, thinking of her own mother. Looking at the wide, smooth scar from her wrist all the way up to her thumb on her right hand, and once again hearing the sound of flying metal and warm, wet trickle of blood running down her fingers. Seeing the scissors he mother had thrown now lying at her feet. Feeling the rage of her mother. A bull, not a hen, but a bull.