My father’s hands

were made for dancing

on typewriter keys, for gripping 

steering wheels, for decanting whisky 

and holding a pipe, for gesturing 

in the courtroom 

and the bathroom 

as he made up stories. His hands 

lit fireworks, grew vegetables, met mine 

when we crossed a road, 

my fingers tucked in 

around his, thick, warm

and hairy as a bear in a fairy-tale, 

bone and muscle tamed by olive skin. When 

I cried, those hands shambled 

in circles on my back. 

They were steadier 

on the pages of the ephemeris 

as he looked up planetary aspects,

working out when life 

might change. 

Now our hands 

meet like branches, rough-hewn 

and worn. His arthritic, mine callused, veins 

close to the surface. My children’s 

toffee fingers stick to his.

Previously published by The Madrid Review