Her thoughts moved to hands. She saw them cutting stems and tying, and tying turned into fingertips around the silk of cravats and fiddling with tie pins and buttons.
But she couldn’t stay there long, lying, looking at her nails, gloss mirroring the sky. She observed her nails, now ruby, resonating with the velvet from her day.
And more hands came, tousled up and pinned her hair while at her feet, fingers fiddled with long laces and ivory silk caught the morning sun.
Hands on a steering wheel, taking the corner she knows well, while another hand took hers and later helped her from the car. Taffeta cascaded, pooling over the old stone path, flooding around the smallness of her feet.
Footsteps clicked in unison till the hands eased hers to others, to the ones waiting in the hush with dust particles held in light.
And later her hands gripped the bouquet and thrust it up into the sky, small hands, fingers glinting like they always would and she held it up, triumphant, high.
Hands tweaking dials on a box of light, freezing moments by the trees, marking time and pressing pause.
{Time Passes.}
And her thoughts stayed with hands, moving hands that held hers for a while, through the years and hours and today, hands around the clock.
Hands ticking time in trigonometric waves around a circle. And the once-upon-a-time hands, new hands now that ease the way.
Her nails shimmering, then and now, her fingers still small like they were. She made a fist, tiny, strong and punched the air. Her hands knew just what to do.
Janey L Foster 