Lotioning My Mother's Back

Because she lives alone and my hands reach
where hers can’t, she asks of me this favor.

It is narrow and soft, my mother’s back.
When I massage in small circles, my mother

circles her own mother, who is made
of whatever makes a shadow thin

and ungraspable. She wants to touch her.
The bones under my mother’s skin—ribcage,

scapula, spine—feel like sharp winter rain.
Between the clouds, I see a patch of sky, glimpse

my aging body: moles like a flicker
of paint, undersides of half-covered breasts,

patches of eczema my fingers soothe
with heavy cream. Is this what a laying on of hands

means? Once my mother touched a garment
and said, full of an awe full of sadness,

She touched this, her skin was inside of this.
My mother’s back shines

like the hands I wipe on the towel’s face.
Weren’t miracles always beginning this way?