Back Scratch (best guest is sometime in late 2006)

(So even though ultimately this is about being sad when people leave, it's really about how amazing both my mother and my bed at home are. If you've never been there/met her, do yourself a favor and make it happen. She is perfect...)

Perfectly filed mails relieve
the spread of itch that had
penetrated the skin
stretched across my back and shoulders.
I stared through tear-bent shadows
at yellow jersey sheets,
and pictured her hands above my body.
They are nearly perfect,
eight fingers and two thumbs
(I remember the morning the left thumb
popped out of its socket.)
Her palms, pale like my cheeks
and lined with the defining moments
of her life. The veins
on the backs of her hands
are the color of her eyes,
without the grey.
Everything is smooth,
skin and nails and veins
all seamlessly connect
while she scratches my back
and empathizes with my sense
of people leaving, people lost.