My father’s hands
I did not know my father well—
or rather, I knew him as well
as he wanted to be known.
I have his body, especially my hands:
a smaller white replica of his
large cocoa hands, my fingers
like his, measured and tapered.
The exact shape and proportions.
The exact expressions and gestures
inherited, though he left when I was five
to occupy long stretches of absence.
Once, I did not see him for seventeen years.
Yet, how much of him was in my body
when we were reunited, how we fell
into step and square of shoulder,
slope of our shared line.
All he knew of love
was how to let it go.
When he died five years later
on another continent,
to me it was no wonder
I could feel it.
Janette Schafer is a poet, photographer, playwright, and realtor living in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She holds an MFA in Poetry from Chatham University. She is the author of three collections of poetry and the chief editor of two poetry anthologies. Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in The Missouri Review, Vox Populi, SWWIM; Sky Island Journal, and The Literary Underground. She is a winner of the Academy of American Poets Prize and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.
