After twilight

my mother

made us fold

our hands.

Sometimes she folded

my hand so tight.

She said her mother

once held her tiny hands, too.

The sails at twilight,

ripples in tiny folds

my mother sits in the sailboat cabin

with her folded hands.

Handed down,

the cloth well-folded,

my mother’s grandmother

ironed lovingly by hand.

Unfolding sails,

setting sail with my hands,

my mother watches from the shore.

The sky becomes violet at twilight.