growing my hair
after years of cheap hair-dye - purple, pink and red,
of slightly sucked-in breath from my parents’ friends
of clippers in the back garden, scissors in drunken hands
and just before the coalescence
of being grownup
i’ve decided to wear my hair long at last
the wind spinning it in pale nets across my face.
i had always craved the animal feel
of short hair that hands raked through, longing
for the bone-thin limbs to match
the body that would make them whisper ‘gamine…’
in the drafts of their love letters
i spent years perfecting
that artful tousle, my fingers dipped in wax.
my limbs are settled, though
my heavy breasts won’t ever sit proud
and barely bound by a smear
of Givenchy chiffon
so i am letting my hair find its measure too
(or perhaps i’m still relying
on the natural propensities of the eye
to draw your gaze to mine…)
but i wear my hair longer now
long enough to comb, to find knots in
long enough to be complicated
to require things like pins.
perhaps i am growing my hair to replace you
perhaps, shorthaired, i was always trying
to be more simple
than was good for me.
Tzotzil woman combing her hair. Photographed by Allan Barnes.
