Dead Mother’s Red Leather Gloves

Even before the tannery

you grew inside your mother’s meridian like I did mine—

the pink hull of embryonic sac and the life of her skin pressed against your own.

I have known that same warmth.

Then, a false Darwin split your two hooves

into ten fingers, the foreign geometry of human hands

factory stitched into raw hide as a whole new rule of opposable thumb

(and who can know where the red came from?).

With my own too-small hands, I first lead you

from the crypt of my mother’s cedar chest

into empty coat pockets. There, you waited, wrinkled and patient, to be filled. 

You knew that I too would evolve beyond the womb. 

But now, as my swollen fingertips at last push

against the outline of yours, there is a strangeness to this warmth, 

sharp static electricity pricked into my palms. I feel that this is not your skin

but her skin. To my cheeks instead, a fire spreads. 

And who can know where the blood came from!