I REMEMBER MY FATHER'S HANDS ALWAYS THE SAME 

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Beaten and puffy, callused

and streaked with grime. Stains of engine oil,

black and sticky like tar. I’d lead

him into the shop’s bathroom

whenever I found them like this,

pump the orange and mealy

mechanic’s soap into his palms.

 

The bathroom walls were tiled white

but yellowed from cigarette smoke.

Profanity written all over, left by the shop’s frequenters.

Dad only scrubbed off the tags

he didn’t think were funny. His favorites

were “Fuck the Police” and “Jesus loves you,”

despite his cop friend who visited regularly,

and his lack of conviction. He said it was good

to have friends on all sides, especially

when you had a business on the rough side

of the city. He said, someday, I’d learn the difference

between living in the suburbs

and the city. I was twelve—

the only thing I knew

about prosperity was that our unfixed cat, Weasel,

could pop out kittens three times

a year, and I could have one in every color

if I’d wanted, so long as the right Tom came around.

But Weasel only lived long enough to give birth twice,

                                               and the kittens came out all twisted

                                                                                                     and kept dying.

 

Now, my father tells me

on the phone that he’s growing

  a great white cyst

                                         like an oyster

                                                               on his kidney

and the doctors say

they can remove it,

               but he says he’s dying.

And he can’t even enjoy

whatever time he has left

because his kids have gone

and mixed themselves across

the goddamned U.S.

 

I remind him that once, he brought me a pile

                                                                   of offal-like rocks

that he claimed he’d shook down

                        from the moon, but really,

they were geodes he’d ordered

on eBay and we cracked them open

  to reveal the crystal clusters hanging

out on the inside, like bowls full

of opals. Maybe, I tell him, the doctors will jack open

his kidney and find a pearl or something forming

itself inside.

Don’t be silly, he says, pearls don’t grow

                           inside of people.

 

I imagine him at the other end

of the line, his hands are shaking. I know

he doesn’t want to die, and I can’t lie to him

and say that everything will be alright. Shit is jacked

up. The difference between living and dying

    is having someone

we love to grasp onto.

 

No, pearls don’t grow inside of people,

but miracles happen all the time. Remember?

You made moonrocks fall from the sky.

  

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​BIO: 

 

Olivia Jacobson is an MFA candidate in poetry at Syracuse University. She is the nonfiction and poetry editor at Salt Hill Journal. Her chapbook, On Junkyards, won the Etchings Press Book Prize for Poetry (Etchings Press, 2025). Her work can also be found in The Shore, Club Plum Literary, and SUNHOUSE Literary Journal.