My Father's Hands

My father died on the USS Nimitz when I was two years old.  I don't have a single memory of him.  When I hear a guitar, pick up a book or write a word I feel like I have always known him.  When the military emptied his room of his belongings they made a list of every single thing he left behind.  Among toiletries and clothing he left his acoustic Martin guitar and his Shakespeare plays.  I often think about him and what life would be like if he was still in my life.  More often than not I think about his hands.  Here is a poem I wrote for him for Father's Day.

I wonder what
My father's hands felt like
Were they sketched in charcoal
Colored in blues
Calloused pools of music

Were they riddled
In military disguises
Secrets loudly sketched
Cramped between his knuckles
Hidden by a salute or spread
Wide by a high five
Comrade soldier

Were they paper cut from
Heavily bound Shakespeare compulsions
Did his fingers ever touch my hands
Hold them near soft sweet feminine fingers
Not yet calloused from the pen ink paper
Shredded folded bound and empty

For Arturo Hinojosa, Jr.  I find you in the spines of all my books.