Her Hands Made Do

Her hands made cherry wine , mouth-puckering saurkraut, and pickled collards, left fermenting all winter, in wooden barrels, and ceramic crocks setting on the cool dirt cellar floor.

Her hands made soap from salvaged cooking grease and lye stirred in a huge black cauldron over autumn wood fires, in the middle of the yard admist falling leaves and knotty green apples.

Her hands cut heads off chickens, skinned ground hogs, Mon River catfish, and trap-caught possums.

Her hands bathed tender baby-skin with a frayed cotton washrag, Ivory soap, and well water.

Her hand dried Baby gently with a striped Cannon towel stripped from her clothesline of fluttering, breeze-dried garments.

Her hands gathered poke salad stalks in season, coal from railroad tracks, and wild blackberries.

Her hands baked fruit cobblers, buttery corn bread, black walnut-almond cookies, and fried peach pies.

Her hands washed dishes and  home grown greens in a white metal pan with Joy detergent.

In winter, her hands used the pan to wash her hair in and scoop fresh fallen snow to make  ice cream with stirred evaporated milk, vanilla extract, nutmeg, and sugar that she'd set on the porch to freeze.

Her hands bathed sick patients and walked somebody else's shaggy dog named, "Rags."

Her hands made meals in Dr. Hughes' kitchen long before she could get home to make her own.

Her hands peeled the chocolate coating from Islay's Klondikes to save for a little child's waiting fingers.

When her silky hair began to gray, her hands made dye from black henna and brown brewed coffee in the white metal pan, for touchups, sort of.

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