It was a strange balm
To see his fingernails lined black
The perennial trenches of grease
Left from days spent rooting in the guts of station wagons
A bad cold left him on the couch one winter
Eating nothing but orange popsicles
His hands turned pale
And worse: clean
It was only then
My father became mortal
He taught me the dying language of setting stones
Words I only speak with him
Sprue
Bevel
Cabochon
And the pure alchemy of casting
How to make a fuchsia blossom
From the brass of a garden faucet
His hands, like the rest of him, have wasted
Fingernails, unclipped
And once again, hospital clean
The list of what his hands can do
Dwindles, too
I worry about his colonized lungs
And, of course, his blood
leached of its metal
I worry about the questions mapped across his face
And equally about the ones on mine
But mostly,
I worry about his hands