Dad, you’d have been 93 today.
I’ve stopped wondering
what that would be like.

I don’t call out for you anymore
but I look in my bones.

I still blame you for not fearing death
but worrying about turning 60.

I think you would have been bowled over by your great-granddaughter.
The stories I told my daughter about you always fall short of the mark.

Sometimes I still want to tell you how I work on an old boat
how most days I leave it in hobbled in pain
and how it is all poetry in action.

I don’t think you’d understand.
But I like to hope you would.