Touching

A daughter joins her mother
at a table beside me
All smiles as if it has been some time
I notice how she touches her,
a hand on her back
sliding down the curved years
Over the wounds of sacrifice,
those places never to be revealed
Secreted to old memories
like the smell of cherished things
I imagine she keeps in a cedar chest
like a phantom limb

A hand, five fingers loving
the hump growing
between her thin shoulders
Hard bone through colourful print
Her hand never leaves
A healing hand, a tender hand,
the touch of a daughter
that mothers long for,
the reconciliation of generations

I cannot look away
for I am part of this,
weeping inside for such moments
that could heal the world,
deliver the observer to timelessness,
the rapture of the innocent
cradled in the space of reverence