EYELIDS

My favorite thing about going to church is the ride home. I lay my seat back and Mama gives me a treatment. She rubs and scratches my head, paying special attention to one spot along my crown on the right side. Then she moves to my ears, revisiting my head all the while. My neck is next, straight down from my ears all the way around to the back of my neck and up the back of my head. Just recently, she has started rubbing my eyelids. I take off my glasses and I can feel her cool fingertips wisp across my skin. All my anguish falls away, my whole body relaxes, my only life is in my eyelids.