My Mother's Penmanship Lessons

By Wesley McNair
In her last notes, when her hand began
to tremble, my mother tried to teach it
 
the penmanship she was known for,
how to make the slanted stems
 
of the p's and d's, the descending
roundness of the capital m's, the long
 
loops of the f's crossed at the center,
sending it back again and again
 
until each message was the same:
a record of her insistence that the hand
 
return her to the way she was before,
and of all the ways the hand had disobeyed.
 

Copyright Credit: Poem copyright ©2016 by Wesley McNair, “My Mother's Penmanship Lessons,” from The Unfastening, (David R. Godine, 2017). Poem reprinted by permission of Wesley McNair and the publisher.
Source: 2016