The Haircut

 

Floor-length tresses

Make tremendous nests

for the biggest birds in the whole wide world.

The rooks have nothing on us now

We carry the sun through the Spanish sky

We squeeze siblings through chimneys 

tornadoes through windmills

& the fattest of camels 

through the needle's thin eye.

 

The tears roll off her cheeks-

she's more newsboy than nymph

The fat silver scissors

Coil the snakes at her feet 

      hissing pritt-teee

      hissing spesssshul

She trembles, then leaps:

 

Surprise, you are free

The path to the ocean becomes obvious, she

is running there, lungs wide

one thousand miles an hour

Every electron nestled snugly

In the solar systems of her spine

Not a spark, not a breath

As she passes by

 

And as her feet

shall be baptized first

As she runs straight into the water

So too shall her head

Be purified last

Made whole again

whole again 

By the salt & the air & the sound of the sea.

 

Is it that a weight has lifted

Or that I've been made stronger?

Is it that the load has vanished

Or that my strength appeared?

 

It is both, she leans and whispers 

twinning her reflection

Admiring the new style for what is gone

As much as what is here.