i was born with twelve fingers
like my mother and my daughter.
each of us
born wearing strange black gloves
extra baby fingers hanging over the sides of our cribs and
dipping into the milk.
somebody was afraid we would learn to cast spells
and our wonders were cut off
but they didn’t understand
the powerful memories of ghosts.      now
we take what we want
with invisible fingers
and we connect
my dead mother       my live daughter    and me
through our terrible shadowy hands.